Immersion Experience Report (IER)

Bhagavatula Chaitable Trust (BCT)

We have done this project with the help of Bhagavatula Chaitable Trust (BCT)
which is a nonprofit organization working towards the transformation of rural India. Active in
the villages of Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh since 1976. Through their integrated rural
development programs, they have nurtured change agents within villages and created model
programs that have set standards across the world. They work in the diverse areas that touch the
day to day lives of villagers. Some of their work areas include
Education
Rehabilitation of the Challenged,
Health Care
Agriculture Research,
Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK)
Wasted land development,
Livelihoods
Revival of Folk Arts

KRISHI VIGYAN KENDRA AT A GLANCE

The Education Commission (1964-66) recommended that a vigorous effort should be
made to establish specialized institutions to provide vocational education in agriculture and allied
fields at the pre-and post-matriculate levels to cater to 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 Kendra
(Agricultural Science
Centres) as innovative institutions for imparting vocational training to the practicing farmers,
school dropouts and field level extension functionaries. At present there are 642 KVKs in India.

BCT- KVK Partnership

BCT- Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) started in 1995 with the support of the Indian
Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), Government of India, in the district of Visakhapatnam.
ICAR is mandated to start one KVK for every district in the country. The KVKs are mainly
given to the State Governments and Universities and a few to reputed NGOs. BCT-KVK is one
of those given to NGOs. Its main thrust is in

Need based on-campus and off-campus vocational trainings for practicing farmers, rural youth
and extension functionaries.
Need based diagnostic and advisory services on specific cropping and allied problems as and
when required by the farmers.
On farm research and Front Line Demonstrations in the farmers field for transfer of
technologies to improve the yields and income of the farmers. In the majority of cases, the
technologies developed were found appropriate only in the area where they were generated. Even
slight variation in conditions turn the technology irrelevant. Keeping this in view a new approach
is being experimented for technology assessment and refinement through on-farm research trials.

Task allotted to us:

1. We are a total of 27 students went to BCT, Visakhapatnam. Out of 27 students, 9 students were
given a project on Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK).
2. We were given three villages namely, Maduthuru, Jaggannapeta, Marrepalem to conduct a
survey on village schedule (overview of a village), and to collect data form individual farmers
for a sample size of 20.
3. We nine members split into three groups, each group taking one village and doing a survey on
it.
4. We have to identify the problems in the village, report these problems to BCT-KVK and
finally suggest the possible solutions.

Activity Conducted:
We conducted the survey for about five days in the village Maduthuru. We interacted with
the individual farmers, VRO of the village and collected the information of village as a whole
and the information of individual farmers for a sample size of 20 farmers.

Data Collected:
We have collected two types of data namely,

1. Village Schedule (an overview of village as a

whole).
2. Individual data from each farmer about their
crop details and difficulties faced by them.
The sample size for individual farmers is 20.
Objective of this Survey:
This survey is a Win-Win situation both for the NGO and to the students.
1. For students, we came to know about the Bharat (The traditional India).
Till now we are familiar with the country India but this Social Immersion
Project (SIP) helped us to know about the traditional India and the
problems faced by the people in traditional India.
2. The survey is also helpful to the NGO. They can use the data from the
survey to help the people of the village by doing some welfare
activities.

Major problems identified in village:

General:
1. Water facility Water resources is a major problem to meet the household and agriculture
needs.
2. No English Medium School in village. The children of the farmers are facing problems in
going to schools in other villages or nearby town.
Agriculture:
1. Labour Though India is well known for its population but there are no availability of
labour for agriculture.
2. Cost of pesticides are increasing and subsidy given by government is not sufficient for
the famers.
3. Seed quality available in the market is not good and resulting in poor quality of yield.