14 Kisan Call Centers set up to Provide Information to Farmers

At present, Kisan Call Centres (KCCs) are functioning from 14 locations of the country including Rajasthan, covering all the States and UTs. All KCC locations are accessible by dialing a single toll free number 1800-180-1551 from 6.00 AM to 10.00 PM on all 7 days a week nationwide. This number is accessible from all telecom networks including private service providers.

In order to improve participation of State Governments to strengthen these Kisan Call Centres, following initiatives have been taken by the Ministry of Agriculture:

i) Close association of the State Governments in supervising quality of information provided by the KCC agents and also in escalation of unresolved queries to the experts at different levels for correct answers to farmers.

ii) Launching a major publicity campaign on electronic and print media for creating awareness about the Scheme.

a. Identifying group of experts from the State to assist KCC agents in answering farmers queries in call conferencing mode.

iii) Keeping the KCC agents apprised of all new schemes and programmes being implemented in the State.

iv) Organizing orientation and interaction of KCC agents with the Divisional/Zonal level officers of the State Agriculture and allied departments every month.

v) Getting weekly feedback from KCC regarding nature of calls including area specific prevalence of crop diseases, pest infestation etc.

In addition to the above, new technologies like Voice Mail, Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange (IPPBX); call recording, call barging, redundant Internet bandwidth, playing of season specific advisory during call waiting period have been introduced to provide a better response to the farmers and effective monitoring the performance of Kisan Call Centres by the States.

This information was given by Shri Tariq Anwar, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today on 27.11.12