KRISHI VIGYAN KENDRAS (KVKs) IN INDIA

ATARI and States-wise list of KVKs in India

In India, sustainable agriculture production is essential to ensure food security for growing population. Nearly, half of the workforce of India employed in agricultural sector, the role of science and technology in agriculture is pertinent to not only ensure food security of the country, but also to provide farmers a competitive edge and to maintain affordability of the food items for the public at large. To realize their true potential, farmers need access to cutting-edge technologies, necessary inputs and related update information.

Indian Governments have taken several steps time to time for strengthen the agriculture sector in the country. In early sixties, the education commission recommended that a vigorous effort be made to establish specialized institutions to provide vocational education in agriculture and allied fields at the pre and post-matriculate levels to cater the training needs of a large number of boys and girls coming from rural areas. It was suggested that such institutions be named as 'Agricultural Polytechnics'. On the recommendation of the Commission during 1966-67, the ICAR mooted the idea of establishing Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Agricultural Science Centres) as innovative institutions for imparting vocational training to the practicing farmers and field level extension functionaries. As the initiative taken by the ICAR resulted the establishment of first KVK in 1974 on a pilot basis at Puducherry (Pondicherry) under the administrative control of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

After thorough review of the programme, strongly recommended for the establishment of more KVKs in the country. The major objective of the KVKs is to apply agriculture research in practical with the local climatic conditions, demonstrate new technologies to farmers and help in its adoption.

Presently, there are 732 KVKs established throughout the country, out of which 506 are under State Agricultural Universities (SAU) and Central Agricultural University (CAU), 66 under ICAR Institutes, 103 under NGOs, 38 under State Governments, 3 under Public Sector Undertakings, 7 under Deemed to be Universities and 5 under Other Educational Institutions.

All KVKs fall under the jurisdiction of one of the 11 Agricultural Technology Application Research Institutes (ATARIs) throughout India.