PROBLEMS FACED BY INPUT DEALERS DURING DAESI PROGRAMME

Abstract

In India, most of the extension work is carried out by the Public sector i.e. Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of India, Krishi Vigyan Kendras and some other agencies. At the national level, the ratio of extension workers to farmers is very low as against the recommended ratio. It is necessary that both the private and public extension system should work together as one unit. Agri-input dealers in the country are the prime source of farm information to the farming community, besides the supply of inputs. National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management, (MANAGE) Hyderabad, designed a one-year diploma course entitled ‘Diploma in Agricultural Extension Services for Input Dealers’ (DAESI) which imparts relevant and location-specific agricultural education to equip these input dealers with sufficient knowledge to transform the minto para-extension professionals so as to enable them to address the day-to-day problems being faced by the farmers at field level. The objective of the study was to find out the problems faced by the input dealers in DAESI. The study was conducted on 120 input dealers from 3 different types of National training Institutes (NTIs), organizing DAESI training programme including KVK, Tabiji, Ajmer, ARS, Navgoan, Alwar and SIAM, Jaipur. The major problems faced by the input dealers were that the courses were too lengthy, less number of field visits to different institutions and Agro- industries, resource persons invited for lectures were not competent, classroom sessions were too long to concentrate, no proper arrangement for drinking water, classroom performance and attendance marks were not counted and difficulty in paying course fees.