THE MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
(SHRI NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR)
(a) At present, there are 727 Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in the country. State wise number of KVKs including those in Bhind, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh are given in Annexure-I.
(b) to (d): There is provision of establishing 18 KVKs in the country. State wise list of districts for KVKs provisioned is given in Annexure-II.
(e) The KVKs are provided with basic infrastructure facilities like, administrative building, farmers’ hostel, demonstration units, equipment and farm machineries. As per requirement, KVKs have also been strengthened with infrastructure facilities like, pulses seed hubs, soil testing kits, micro-irrigation systems, Integrated Farming Systems units, farm machineries and equipment, District Agro-Met Units, etc. during last five years.
(f) A Third Party evaluation of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) was carried out by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) through National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development (NILERD), an autonomous institute under NITI Aayog, in 2015. The major observations and findings of this evaluation were as below:
i. It was observed that KVKs are playing proactive role in transferring new technology at field level with beneficial impacts.
ii. The KVKs have an edge in technology transfer over other service providers by virtue of having better technical expertise and demonstration abilities.
iii. About 40 percent farmers reported that they implemented the technology immediately after its dissemination by KVK and that 25 percent did so from the next agricultural season.
iv. On an average a KVK covers 43 villages and 4300 farmers per year. 80% of villages covered are 10 km away from KVK.
v. 96% farmers’ requests were attended by KVKs.
vi. 42% technologies adopted by farmers resulted in higher productivity, 33% resulted in high harvest income and 20% resulted in drudgery reduction.
vii. About 25% of persons trained started self-employment ventures.
viii. With the intervention by KVKs, about 80 percent of the farmers have modified their agricultural patterns which were related to diversification of crops and changes in cropping pattern, seed planting technique, use of fertilizers and pesticides, changes in machinery used and in water use pattern. Again in 2020, ICAR conducted a study on impact evaluation of KVKs through Indian Society of Agribusiness Professionals, New Delhi. Major findings of the study were as below:
1) On an average, KVK outreach found to be around 90-100 villages. With its strong ICT interventions, the outreach to villages increases to even 200 villages per KVK.
2) There is increase in outreach programs by KVKs from 2012-13 to 2019-20 in number of on farm trials by 51%, frontlines demonstrations by 61%, farmers trained by 16% and extension personnel trained by 35%.
3) There is increase in proportion of farm women in trainings from 30% in 2012-13 to 37% in 2019-20.
4) There is 142% increase in the number of short message sent from 2012-13 to 2019-20. Similarly, there is increase in the number of the farmers covered from the year 2012-13 to 2019-20 by 135% with the advent of the digital technologies such as WhatsApp group, Facebook group which has increased the outreach by 4 times.
5) There is 32% increase in seed production and 117% increase in planting material production by KVKs during the said period.
(g) The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has already sanctioned Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in all districts of Bihar including Aurangabad and Rohtas.
(h) The details of approved KVKs for then establishment are given in Annexure-II.
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