Constraints as Perceived by the Subject Matter Specialists of Selected Krishi Vigyan Kendras of Assam

Abstract

KVK plays a pivotal role in streamlining and offering an advantageous route to the increase of the agricultural zone of various regions in the country. It would be helpful to operate smoothly for the KVKs if the problems faced by the SMSs are properly addressed as they are the grass-root level functionaries of the organization. For that purpose the present study was conducted in 23 KVKs which are under Assam Agricultural University in the State of Assam. Out of 123 SMSs, 80 SMSs from 21 KVKs constituted the sample of respondents for the study. A questionnaire with structured and open-ended questions was created, and dichotomous responses were produced. The findings revealed that majority (62.5%) of the respondents belonged to the age category of 33 - 44 years, followed by 21.25 per cent who belonged to 45 - 52 years category and 16.25 per cent who belonged to 29 - 32 years category. Majority (71.25%) of the respondents were M.Sc degree holders while others (28.75%) were Ph.D degree holders. Majority (58.75%) of the respondents had 4 to 7 years of service experience. For determining the constraints six (6) different dimensions were considered in the study namely technological constraints, administrative constraints, and socio-economic constraints, input or other material constraints, personal constraints and other miscellaneous constraints. It is observed that 58.75 per cent of the SMSs expressed low economic status and social obstacles of farmers followed by overload of reports, meetings and activities apart from KVK mandated activities (57.5%), lack of proper infrastructure for better execution (46.25%), additional workload affecting social and personal life (42.5%), difficulty in disseminating complex technology (41.25%) and poor infrastructure maintenance (16.25%) as major constraints under each dimension respectively. Apart from that majority of the respondents mentioned about lack of women farmer-friendly technology, lack of location specific technology, shortage of transportation facility, shortage of manpower, lack of financial ability of farmers to accept agriculture as a business, high input cost, less opportunity of HRD training for SMS as constraints related to their field of activities.