Farmer's opinion about Kisan Call Centre: A way of farm-communication

The study was conducted purposively in Bhagalpur district of Bihar. The study revealed that as many as 37.5% of the farmers were aware of the existence of Kisan Call Centre in Bhagalpur district of Bihar. More than one fourth (29.33%) of the respondents came to know about the K.C.C. through Radio, followed by T. V. (21.33%), Newspaper (16.0%), Friends (13.33%), Relatives (10.66%) and other sources (9.33%). Only 20.00 per cent of the respondents made frequent telephone call to KCC to seek information about certain agricultural issues where as 42.67 percent contacted the Centre occasionally only. There were about 37.33 per cent of the respondents who, though aware of KCC, did not make any call to the Centre. Secondly, only 35.0 per cent of the respondents considered accessibility to KCC being easy. Making contact with KCC was thought to be difficult by about 65.0 per cent of the respondent farmers. About three-fourth of the respondents (74.5%), though sought information from KCC, did not adopt the recommendations advanced by the Call Centre. However, 76.6% of the respondents felt that this scheme would be highly beneficial for the farmers of the State. Among the information sources other than KCC, more than one-fourth of the respondents (25.0%) relied upon Agri-entrepreneurs to solve their agri-problems followed by Scientists (21.0%), Radio (16.0%), T.V. (11.5%), Govt. Agencies (10.5%), Newspapers (8.0%) and Other sources (8%). Moreover, 63.9% of K.C.C. users were satisfied with the behavior of the Experts. More than fifty percent (55.3%) of the users are satisfied with the overall service of the K.C.C. Scheme. This might be due to effective recommendations, clarity in communication, delivery pattern of advice, service time, etc.