Job Performance and Participation of Subject Matter Specialists in Extension Activities of KVK’s

Abstract

Although Indian agriculture started journey towards mechanized farming from last few decades but the change is very slow and noticed in few pockets of country. The modernized agriculture largely depends upon development and dissemination of technology. The State Department of Agriculture, SAU’s, NGO’s and Krishi Vigyan Kendra are the main extension agencies working towards the transfer of technology. The Subject Matter Specialists playing vital role in generating knowledge, testing the technology and communicating the same towards the farming community as well as the extension functionaries. The present investigation was undertaken to access the job performance and participation of SMSs in diff erent extension activities working in eight Krishi Vigyan Kendra of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra State. Forty-Eight SMSs working in the KVKs were selected purposively and interviewed with a structural interview schedule. The fi ndings revealed that larger proportion (89.58%) of the SMSs were observed under good job performance category, while none of the SMS’s were noticed with poor and below average job performance category. Organization of training’s, frontline demonstrations, management & supporting activities were noticed as the main areas in the job performed by the SMS’s. Almost all the SMS’s using diff erent extension activities for dissemination of technology towards the farming community, 1058 fi eld visit, 686 diagnostic fi eld visits were made, while 152 FLD, 140 OFT were organized, 476 guest lectures were delivered, 183 radio talks were broadcast and 429 extension publication were brought out all the SMS’s working in the studied area during the period of one year