KISAN CALL CENTER (KCC): Empowering Farmers Through Consultancy Services
Kisan Call Center: 1800-180-1551 (from any Landline or Mobile) / 1551 (from BSNL Landline)
Agriculture extension services along with facilitation to farmers are the mandate of Agriculture Department everywhere in the country. Continuing fragmentation of land holdings and the increasing number of small holdings are creating challenges for the extension function from the viewpoint of input supply, transfer of technology, ensuring general awareness, etc. One-onone contact via extension services is now becoming practically difficult, and a shift towards the group approach is becoming inevitable.
In order to harness the potential of ICT in Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture launched the scheme “Kisan Call Centres (KCCs)” on January 21, 2004. Main aim of the project is to answer farmers’ queries on a telephone call in their own dialect. These call Centres are working in 14 different locations covering all the States and UTs. A countrywide common eleven digit Toll Free number 1800-180-1551 has been allotted for Kisan Call Centre. This number is accessible through mobile phones and landlines of all telecom networks including private service providers. Replies to the farmers’ queries are given in 22 local languages.
Call center services are available from 6.00 am to 10.00 pm on all seven days of the week at each KCC location. Kisan Call Centre agents known as Farm Tele Advisor(FTAs), are graduates or above (i.e. PG or Doctorate) in Agriculture or allied (Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Poultry, Bee-keeping, Sericulture, Aquaculture, Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural Marketing, Bio-technology, Home Science etc. and possess excellent communication skills in respective local language.
Queries which cannot be answered by Farm Tele Advisor(FTAs) are transferred to higher level experts in a call conferencing mode. These experts are subject matter specialists of State Agriculture Departments, ICAR and State Agricultural Universities.
A Kisan Knowledge Management System (KKMS) to facilitate correct, consistent and quick replies to the queries of farmers and capture all the details of their calls, has been developed . Kisan Knowledge Management System (KKMS) has its independent web site http://dackkms.gov.in . The Kisan Call Centre (KCC) Agents working at various KCC locations throughout the country have access to this web site through their specific ID’s & Pass-Word provided to them.
Concept
The challenges before Indian Agriculture are immense. This sector needs to grow at a faster rate than in the past to allow for higher per capita income and consumption. It is an accepted fact that the sound agricultural development is essential for the overall economic progress. About two thirds of workforce directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture. This sector generates about 28 percent of its GDP and over 15 percent of exports. Rising consumer prosperity and the search by farmers for higher incomes will simultaneously drive crop diversification. Export opportunities for agricultural products are also expected to continue to grow, provided India could meet the stability, quality and presentation standards demanded by foreign trade and consumers and maintain its comparative advantage as a relatively low cost producer.
Given its range of agro-ecological setting and producers, Indian Agriculture is faced with a great diversity of needs, opportunities and prospects. The well endowed irrigated areas which account for 37 percent of the country’s cultivated land currently contribute about 55 percent of agricultural production, whereas, rainfed agriculture which covers 63 percent accounts for only 45 percent of agricultural production. In these less favorable areas, yields are not only low but also highly unstable and technology transfer gaps are much wider as compared to those in irrigated areas.
If it is to respond successfully to these challenges, greater attention will have to be paid to information-based technologies. Strengthened means of dissemination will be needed to transmit this information to farmers. Both technology generation and transfer will have to focus more strongly than ever before on the themes of optimization in the management of their available resources by producers, sustainability, coping with diversity by adapting technology more specifically to agro-ecological or social circumstances and raising the economic efficiency of agriculture. To make information transfer more effective, greater use will need to be made of modern information technology and communication among researchers, extensionists and farmers.
Public extension system requires a paradigm shift from top-down, blanket dissemination of technological packages, towards providing producers with the knowledge and understanding with which they solve their own location – specific problems. Continuous two-way interaction among the farmers and agricultural scientists is the most critical component of Agricultural Extension.
At present, the issues have been addressed by the Extension Systems of State Departments of Agriculture, State Agricultural Universities (SAUs), KVKs, NGOs, Private Extension Services through various extension approaches in transfer of technology. A limitation in Transfer of Technology (TOT) model continues to remain a challenge for the public and private extension systems. With the availability of telephone and Internet, it is now possible to bridge this gap to quite a large extent by using an appropriate mix of technologies.
The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India has launched Kisan Call Centers with a view to leverage the extensive telecom infrastructure in the country to deliver extension services to the farming community. The purpose of these Call Centers is mainly to respond to issues raised by farmers instantly in the local language, on continuous basis.
Operational Mechanism
A Kisan Call Center consists of a complex of telecommunication infrastructure, computer support and human resources organized to manage effectively and efficiently the queries raised by farmers instantly in the local language. Mainly, Subject Matter Specialists (SMSs) using telephone and computer, interact with farmers to understand the problem and answer the queries at a Call Centre.
This is a functional area within an organization like Research Stations, ATICs, KVKs Agricultural Colleges, or an outsourced, where separate facilities exist solely to answer inbound calls or make outbound telephone calls, to resolve the queries of pending calls. Usually it refers to a sophisticated voice operations center that provides a full range of inbound or outbound call handling services including customer support, direct assistance, multi-lingual customer support and other services.
This is a new dimension in Agriculture Extension Management, which takes account of, and makes full use of on-going information and communication revolution, by optimally utilizing the communication bandwidth to serve the farming community in remotest areas of the country by connecting them to best of the agricultural scientific community. This is an important value multiplier for the existing extension mechanisms, which find it otherwise difficult (in terms of infrastructure and finances) to reach their desired clientele. This will enable establishment of close linkages and seamless communication mechanism among the key stakeholders in the extension system namely – Agricultural Scientists, Extension Functionaries, Farmers and Marketing Agencies.
Schematic Representation
Infrastructure
The Kisan Call Center infrastructure is placed at three locations namely
- A professionally managed Call Center (Level-I)
- A Response Center in each organization, where services of SubjectMatter Specialists are made available (Level-II)
- The Nodal Cell (Level-III)
Infrastructure at Level-I :
The technical infrastructure at Level-I is the most critical and complex. The farmers’ call lands on a switch in BSNL and the same is transferred to one of the 8 hunting lines (on first come first serve basis) at the Call Center premises. Here there will be two Agriculture Graduates picking up these calls and capturing data.
To facilitate this, the hunting lines will have interface with Local Area Network (LAN) at the premises of a Call Center. Two nodes of LAN (with two computers, two telephones with head phones and tele-conferencing facility, support of the server and Internet connectivity) will be dedicated to Kisan Call Center. The entire backup support system consisting of Uninterrupted Power Supply (for both server and the nodes), Air-conditioning System and other logistics will be made available by the Call Center. The responsibility of the Nodal Officer is to see that two Agriculture Graduates are placed to serve as Level-I functionaries as Agri-communicators at the identified Call Center. The whole technical infrastructure at Level-I (including dedicated line with a toll free number identified by Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India) will be owned and maintained by Call Center Management.
Infrastructure at Level-II :
It is proposed to have a Response Center in the working territory of each Institution or Agency, who will provide services of Level-II functionaries. The basic infrastructure at Level-II includes a dedicated high bandwidth telephone line (preferably 128 kbps ISDN line), a Desktop Computer System with Internet connectivity, one printer and a 2 KVA UPS system and appropriate logistic support in terms of an exclusive room with air-conditioning. This will be organized by the Nodal Agency at the identified resource institutions.
Infrastructure at Level-III :
The Level-III operations will be managed at the identified Nodal institutions. The basic infrastructure at Level-III will include a dedicated high bandwidth telephone line (preferably 128 kbps ISDN line), a Desktop Computer System with Internet connectivity, one printer and a 2 KVA UPS system and appropriate logistic support. The Level-III is supposed to be manned by a Senior Officer from the Nodal Institution. The infrastructure will also include appropriate software for analysis of call data and reporting mechanism (with provision for daily, weekly and monthly reporting systems with support on crop / enterprise wise, region wise and issue wise reports). This system demands a support of an ICT Facilitator of the Nodal Institution to continually support proper logging, analysis, documentation and reporting at Level-III. This will be organized by the Nodal Institution at their own premises.
kill & Human Resources
(a) Facilitation Skills:
When a call received at the Level-I and Level-II, the receivers welcome the caller by “Greetings” and facilitate him in presenting the problem in a focused way by giving a lead to his query in the following way :
- Speak in Farmer’s language
- Use Easy words
- Use short sentences
- Give patient listening to understand the local conditions and Farmer’s situation for the query he raises.
- Diagnose the problem by probing the details.
- Answering the query at the level of farmer’s knowledge.
(b) Communication Skills:
- Empathise with the farmer
- Listen actively for content and feeling
- Exhibit commitment and interest to convince the farmer
- Avoid defensiveness in conversation.
- Use personal words in conversation
- Relate with local experiences, if possible.
- Avoid use of unnecessary and complex words and sentences
- Smooth transition in voice
- Speak politely
- Close call with greetings.
(c) Computer Skills:
- Basic knowledge of key board and mouse
- Basic knowledge of Internet
- Sending and Receiving E-mails.
· Monitor & Review
- For successful functioning of Kisan Call Centers, there is a need to monitor and review the various activities of the KCC by the Nodal Institution on regular basis. The Nodal Institution is responsible for documenting the daily activities of the Kisan Call Center at various levels on farmers’ queries and their resolution, availability of Subject Matter Specialists, call dropouts and their transfer to Level-III and response to the farmers within 72 hours. The Nodal Institution will also organize fortnightly meetings with the Heads of Departments of Response Centers for first 6 months to ensure the proper identification and placement and changes if necessary of Level-II functionaries and resolution of the queries shared with Subject Matter Specialists and their documentation. Subsequently, these meetings will be held every month in Response Centers on rotation.
- The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation (DAC), Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Govt. of India will review the functioning of all the Kisan Call Centers with the Heads of Nodal Institutions every month to start with for first six months and subsequently for every quarter in each of the Nodal Institution on rotation basis.
· Documentation & Reporting
- The Nodal Institution is responsible for documentation and reporting. The Officer In-charge of the Nodal Institution will gather the reports from the Kisan Call Center / Response Centers and prepare a consolidated statement on farmers’ queries and answers, crop / enterprise-wise, along with the resolutions given at Level-III and report to the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation (DAC), Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Govt. of India through e-mail on fortnightly basis.
- All the proceedings of the Kisan Call Center will be documented by each of the Nodal Institution and shared with other Kisan Call Centers for preparing a database on crop / enterprise-wise and also to prepare Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
Reference-.manage.gov.in
