PPT on a research paper

1. A study of selected sample from
Chapra district in Bihar in case of
Kisan Call Centre Scheme

2.  Rural development is advocated as a basic strategy
for economic development in India and mobile has
come to be the fastest growing development tool in
the developing nations connecting rural
populations, marginal and distant communities.
 Considering this fact many rural development
programmes have been launched by the central
government of India, one of them is ‘kisan call
centre’.
 This programme was started throughout the
country to support farmers so that they can get the
informations regarding pests, weed and diseases
and better management of fertilizer use on one toll
free number in their local languages.

3.  The call can be made through any landline or
mobile number but as the villages of Bihar
being studied most of them are not having
personal landline connection but they are
mobile equipped.
 This study tries to evaluate the developments
in the agriculture which have occurred after the
use of mobile by the farmers for this scheme..

4.  This paper would like to investigate how this
initiative has improved the agricultural
condition of the village.
 It focuses on the two-fold need to address some
of the social and technical challenges as well as
policy suggestions to use mobile to promote
agricultural condition of farmers.
 In this study interview of the farmers of the
village have been used to collect primary data
and review of documents have been done for
secondary data.

5.  While consumption of mobile phones is
growing very fast in India and government is
launching many citizen services on mobile
phones due to its growth, it is pertinent to see
whether these services are utilized for the said
purpose. Here we are concerned with only
those services which are provided for the
agricultural assistance to the farmers of India.

6. We have tried to investigate following questions:
 Are the farmers of Chhapara district of Bihar,
aware of the services like Kisan Call Centre ?
 If yes, do they subscribe to these services?
 What kind of occupational advantages they
have got from these services?
 Are they satisfied from these communication
services or should there be another mode of
communication?

7.  This study uses qualitative method to
investigate the questions mentioned above.
 Using purposive sampling method selection of
20 farmers were done from various villages of
Chhapra district of Bihar with the help of one
Chhapra based NGO Nav Jagriti, which also
provides various agricultural training to the
selected farmers from various village of the
districts.

8.  These selected farmers were representatives of
their respective villages and most of them are
frequent and oldest users of mobile phones.
 In-depth interviews of only eight farmers were
conducted to know that how useful Kisan Call
Centre are for them and how promptly they are
making use of their mobile phones in getting
informations about agriculture from this centre.
 While conducting interviews the saturation point
was reached after interviews of only 5-6 farmers
only and repetitive answers started to be found.
Thus the interviews were limited to eight farmers
only.

9.  All the farmers fall in the age group of 35 years
to 50 years and primarily occupied in
agriculture for minimum one year and
maximum 30 years.
 This demographic distribution also shows that
the sample taken is representative as far as
possible from the point of view of experience in
occupation and residing village.

10.  Even though farmers have been using mobile
phones for at least five years and in most cases
12 years, they rarely use it for any kind of
occupational growth.
 While comparing it with the educational
qualifications of the farmers too, it is found that
except two, all other farmers in sample taken
are reluctant in using mobile phones for their
occupational benefit.

11.  Neither a farmer without educational
qualification nor the farmer with Master’s
degree had shown any kind of inclination for
using mobile phones for getting occupational
benefit.
 This means that educational qualifications have
nothing to do with technical advancement for
occupational growth.

12.  The results of this section also confirms the responses
found from section II that majority of sample taken are
not using mobile phones for occupational growth.
 Out of eight farmers, only three have used the services
of Kisan Call Centre for only informations about
pesticides which in itself too small information.
 On enquiring, why they were reluctant to use the
services of Kisan Call Centre, even though 100 percent
of them are well aware about such provision, one
person said:
 “I never called them up. Because I don’t have the
contact no. of Kisan Call Centre.”

13. While another one said:
 “I never called up the centre as I thought they are lying or
not providing valuable information. And secondly, I don’t
have the contact no. too.”
 They take the contact number from the researcher and note
it down. They say that now onwards they would call Kisan
Call Centre since they feel that if somebody (researcher) is
talking about this centre then it must be genuine.
 This shows that even all of them are well aware about such a
centre, still they are suspicious about it, so do not use it
actively. Also, it is uncomfortable for them to call and ask
questions, so they do not bother to even find out the call
centre’s number.

14.  IT is found under this section that all of the farmers do not
consider the informations provided by the call centre at all
effective and relevant neither they find Kisan Call Centre
supportive for their occupational growth. One of them said:
 “They told me to send the photograph of crop through mail. But I
didn’t send it as this is not feasible for me. I don’t know how to do
all these things. So didn’t call them again. If they are saying what I
can’t do then this is not problem solving.”
 He further suggested: “If expert is there then he can suggest the
solution after knowing the problem in details. But they are saying
to send the snap of crop. Till the time I fulfill these formalities, I
would lose my entire crop. So we get the information from
pesticide shop nearby my village.”
 “The person who was talking was not very supportive and I felt
that he was not specialist and was not interested in solving my
problem so told me to send the photo and they know very well
that it is problem for farmers.”

15.  Another farmer suggested: “As People are not very
supportive at the centre so something must be
done about it first and then to make people aware
about it at village level. Since villagers are not
much literate so they are not able to understand all
informations. They don’t feel comfortable with it.”
 “Time to time Krishi mela should be organised to
provide informations about agriculture but people
there get busy in selling the product on much
higher rate than the market to earn money.

16.  On asking about the lacking in the system of Kisan Call
Centre, one of the respondents said:
“System has lots of problem at every level. The government
provides informations and training at district level. When I
attended that, there was not any practical solution for our
problem. They were providing only theoretical informations
what has been written in the book. That is not working on
ground level.”
 “Even if they were not able to provide the information, they
could have taken further action for the solution. If system
would have been there for feedback, we could have
highlighted it, but there is not such sustem.”
 “Many times they are prescribing pesticide that is too costly
for us. So we are getting solution at village pesticides shop
instead.”

17.  Almost all the villagers think that any other mode of
communication rather than mobile communication would
be more effective and suggested that face-to-face
communication and group communication at village level
would help the villagers in understanding the advantages of
the scheme. One of the respondents suggested:
 “Something should be done to make Kisan Call Centre more
supportive and farmer’s friendly and cooperative.”
 This sentence reflects the helplessness of the farmers. They
need any such support mechanism but more users friendly
and effective.
 The RMP said, “Until today no one is using the services of
Kisan Call Centre as far as I know. As RMP (regular medicl
practioner), I am very much in touch with village people so
as per my information, not a single person is availing this
facility.”

18.  Some of the obvious results of this study are as follows:
 Farmers are not using this centre for their occupational growth at
all.
 Those who tried to contact it, they didn’t find it very supportive
and of their use.
 As many farmers are not able to go for district level training
programme, so they are finding this centre alien for them.
 This kind of governmental support is running on the paper only.
They have to show that system is working but actually it’s not.
 Panchayat level intial awareness campaign is must for this kind of
concept. Otherwise they are not able to connect with it and
ultimately it’s a failure.
 Feedback systems, strong monitioring system, experienced experts
of the field are few recommendations for the success of the
programme.

19.  These results reflect that in spite of high
consumption of mobiles in India, mobile based
services should not be launched without proper
research.
 Both urban population oriented services and the
rural population oriented services should be
evaluated properly by collecting the feedbacks of
the users and only then they should be modified.
 Still in India, for major part of the population
mobile is a talking device and except very few tech
savvy people, others hesitate in using it for
professional purposes.

20.  Many are even not aware of all the services
available on mobile. So just on the basis of the
argument that mobile is used by large number of
people and has tremendous capacity of
disseminating informations, government should
not neglect the unique requirements of its unique
and diverse regional population.
 There is no doubt that with the use of mobile
communication, many development
programmmes run by government can be more
effective, however it should be used strategically
by understanding the needs and capacity of target
audiences.

21.  Nibha Sinha, Independent Researcher and
Freelance Faculty, J 3109, Gaur Green City, 8
Vaibhavkhand, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad–201014,
Uttar Pradesh, India, E-mail:
sinha_nibha@yahoo.com,
Mobile no.: 91-9560699552.
 Archana Kumari, Assistant Professor, Department
of Mass communication and New Media
Central University of Jammu, Jammu – 180011, J &
K, India, E-mail: archanaiimc@gmail.com,
Mobile no: 91-9419026595.