Pluralistic Agricultural Extension System in India: Innovations and Constraints

The major issues before Indian extension system are: how to improve the effectiveness of extension systems? How to serve the small land holders and marginal farmers in diversified farming systems? and proper allocation of fund, human resources and its management. The ATMA model has been successful in addressing many extension problems. Hence, the model should be introduced and implemented vigilantly. ATMAs should be empowered with sufficient administrative, financial and implementation flexibilities to reach the large numbers of small and marginal farmers. There is need of coordinated attempt to synergize and converge efforts at district and block levels to improve the performance of stakeholders. It is essential to route all the state and central government extension funds and human resources through a single agency, i.e. ATMA for effective utilization of crucial resources. The state governments should provide proper financial support by allocating at least 20% of states total budget to ATMA, which in turn distributes among state departments. The development grant provided by ICAR to SAUs and KVKs should be reviewed and adequately enhanced. Scaling up of FIGs/SHGs and Farmers Associations (FAs) could be an effective mechanism for empowerment and transfer of agricultural technologies. For serving the small communities efficiently, Information and Communication Technologies could be useful tools to increase connectivity between various FIGs/SHGs. It will also reduce extension cost and the workload of extension functionaries. There is need to learn from other actors like private sector, NGOs as they have much in-depth presence with various successful model.