Historical background of Krishi Vigyan Kendras

The Education Commission (1964-66) recommended that a vigorous effort be made to establish specialized institutions to provide vocational education in agriculture and allied fields at the pre and postmatriculate levels to cater the training needs of a large number of boys and girls coming from rural areas. The Commission, further, suggested
that such institutions be named as ‘Agricultural Polytechnics’. The recommendation of the Commission was thoroughly discussed: during 1966-72 by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture, Planning Commission, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and other allied institutions. Finally, the ICAR mooted the idea of establishing
Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Agricultural Science Centres) as innovative institutions for imparting vocational training to the practicing farmers, school dropouts and field level extension functionaries.

The ICAR Standing Committee on Agricultural Education, in its meeting held in August, 1973, observed that since the establishment of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) was of national importance which would help in accelerating the agricultural production as also in improving the socio-economic conditions of the farming community, the assistance of
all related institutions should be taken in implementing this scheme. The ICAR, therefore, constituted a committee in 1973 headed by Dr. Mohan Singh Mehta of Seva Mandir, Udaipur (Rajasthan), for working out a detailed plan for implementing this scheme. The Committee submitted its report in 1974.

The first KVK, on a pilot basis, was established in 1974 at Puducherry (Pondicherry) under the administrative control of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore.

The Planning Commission approved the proposal of the ICAR to establish 18 KVKs during the Fifth Five Year Plan. With the growing demand for more such Kendras, the Governing Body (GB) of the Council approved 12 more KVKs in 1979 and they were established in the same year from Agricultural Produce Cess Fund (AP Cess Fund). Pending clearance of the Sixth Five -Year Plan scheme on KVK by the Planning Commission, the GB of the Council again approved 14 KVKs in 1981, which were established during 1982-- 83 from AP Cess Fund.

A High Level Evaluation Committee on KVK was constituted by the ICAR in 1984. After thorough review of the programme, strongly recommended for the establishment of more KVKs in the country. Keeping this in view the Planning Commission approved to establish 44 new KVKs during the Sixth Plan. Thus by the end of Sixth Plan, 89 KVKs had started functioning in the country.

During the Seventh Plan, 20 new KVKs were established. The success of KVKs at many locations created a great demand for establishment of more KVKs in the remaining districts of the country. Accordingly, the Planning Commission further approved 74 new KVKs to be established during the period 1992-93. Again in the Eighth Plan (1992-97), 78 new KVKs were approved and the same were established in the country, making total number of functional KVKs by the end of the Eighth Plan to 261. The number of KVKs increased to 290 during Ninth Plan with the establishment of 29 KVKS.

On the occasion of the Independence Day Speech on 15th August, 2005 the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India announced that by the end of 2007 there should be one KVK in each of the rural districts of the country. This has taken the total number of KVKs to 551 at the end of Tenth Plan.

At present there are 630 KVKs, which include 428 under State Agricultural Universities (SAU) and Central Agricultural University (CAU), 51 under ICAR Institutes, 99 under NGOs, 35 under State Governments, and the remaining 17 under other educational institutions. The growth in number of KVKs during various plan periods is given below

Krishi Vigyan Kendra, a plan scheme designed and nurtured by ICAR for the past four decades, will play a vital role as it has the following unique features:

• Creation of valuable resources in terms of technical manpower and assets
• Confirmation of technologies to suit local specificity
• Showcasing the frontier technologies
• Capacity building among stakeholders
• Front runner in technological application, information and inputs
• Participatory approaches in planning, implementing, executing and evaluation

All KVKs are working towards reducing the time lag between generation of technology at the research institution and its application to the location specific farmer fields for increasing production, productivity and net farm income on a sustained basis with the following mandate.

Mandate

Application of technology/products through assessment, refinement and demonstration for adoption. To achieve the mandate effectively, the following activities are envisaged for each KVK:

• On-farm testing to identify the location specificity of agricultural technologies under various farming systems.
• Frontline demonstrations to establish its production potentials on the farmers’ fields.
• Training of farmers and extension personnel to update their knowledge and skills in modern agricultural technologies.
• Work as resource and knowledge centre of agricultural technologies for supporting initiatives of public, private and voluntary sector for improving the agricultural economy of the district.
• Produce and make available technological products like seed, planting material, bio agents, young ones of livestock etc to the farmers
• Organize extension activities to create awareness about improved agricultural technologies to facilitate fast diffusion and adoption of technologies in agriculture and allied sectors.