Organizational Level Performance of Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) under New Extension Reforms in the State of Assam

Abstract

The Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA), defined as a semi-autonomous decentralized participatory and market-driven extension model represents a shift away from transferring technologies for major crops to diversifying output. As the ATMA programme is under operation in Assam for the last ten years, the researchable questions may arise about to what extent the functions of ATMA through cafeteria of activities at district level are achieved such as farmer oriented activities, farm information dissemination, agricultural technology refinement, validation and adoption (R-E-F-Linkage), administrative and capital expenses, innovative activities and other innovative activities etc. Keeping in view the broad aims of the ATMA and to find out relevant answers on the above stated questions, a study was carried out in three CSS-ATMA districts of Assam namely Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Goalpara in the year 2015-16 with a view to find out the organizational level performance of ATMA under new extension reforms. A purposive sampling method was followed to select the districts for the study. The result of the findings highlighted that the trend of achievement of cafeteria of activities as per ATMA guideline were below 50.00 per cent in the three consecutive years viz., 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 except in few activities where the achievement of activities under the heads “Agril. Technology Refinement, Validation and Adoption (R-E-F-Linkage)”, “Administrative/Capital Expenses” and “Innovative Activities”, were 62.50 per cent, 59.39 per cent and 50.03 per cent respectively in the year 2013-14. On the other hand, in the year 2014-15, the achievement of activities under the head “Other Innovative Activities” were 100.00 per cent.