Limitations with private extension service: A study in tarai region of Uttarakhand

This study was conducted to know the farming community's opinion and their satisfaction level regarding quality of service, accessibility to inputs and services, relevance of service, technical competency of their extension personnel and procedure in delivery of service provided by PESPs. This study was undertaken in Udam Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand state. A sample size of sixty was selected based on simple random sampling technique, from the list of clientele member farmers of three PESPs in the region, viz. Hariyali Kisan Bazaar, e-Choupal and Tata Kisan Sansar. Further an attempt was made to explore the limitations with PESPs as perceived by the respondents.

The majority of the respondents (78.33 per cent) reported that ‘High cost of service ’as the major problem with PESPs followed by ‘Lack of assurance in quality of service/information ’(73.33 per cent) and Adulteration of inputs ’(65 per cent).

Further it was also found that respondents were ‘Highly satisfied ’with ‘Procedure in delivery of service ’(4.15), ‘Quality of service ’(4.13) and ‘Timeliness of service ’(3.72) but they were ‘Least satisfied ’with ‘Cost of the service ’(1.78), and ‘Appropriateness of approach followed ’(1.31). Thus, it could be concluded that respondents were not satisfied to the same level for all the services rendered by PESPs. This indicated that all is not well with private extension service and there was need for regulatory mechanism to monitor prices, quality assurance and adulteration of inputs by appropriate polices by the state and central governments.