33
Over 89,292 Commodity based Farmer Interest Groups (CIGs)/FIGs
have so far been mobilised under the scheme.
Over 32,399 Farm Schools have been organized on the fields of
outstanding farmers (p.76).
Evaluation and impact assessment
Incidentally, Government of India (Ministry of Agriculture) had
entrusted the task of centralized Evaluation and Impact Assessment of the
ATMA Programme, to AFC India Limited., a premier national level consultancy
organisation. The study was conducted in two districts of Haryana and nine
districts of Uttar Pradesh covering 18 Project Blocks spread over 245 villages
in U.P and four Project Blocks spread over 70 villages in Haryana The sample
size for field survey comprised of a total of 7875 beneficiary farmers covering
6125 farmers from Uttar Pradesh and 1750 farmers from Haryana (See: http://
/ Evaluation%20and%20Impact%20Assessment%20of%20
ATMA%20Programme.html).
Key Observations and Findings
The study aimed at assessing the project impact on the target beneficiaries
and in reforming the extension system in respect of various processes envisaged
under the scheme.
The study revealed that the extension reforms envisaged under ATMA
programme was slowly and gradually picking up. While the institutional
mechanism created at the district level had started functioning after the initial
teething problems, the block level operations had not moved at the same pace
in many of the sampled districts mainly due to shortage of staff at the block
level and also the level of their skill. The block level institutions viz., BTT &
FAC have started playing some role in planning and execution of developmental
plans at the village level though the bottom-up participatory planning, single
window concepts and convergence/ dovetailing of schemes in the true sense of
the term, are yet to take an institutional shape.
FIGs/CIGs which have initiated some activities are yet to become self-
propelling institutions to make use of the extension network. The process of
technology dissemination through various institutional arrangements such as
training, demonstrations, exposure visits, field days, kisan ghosties, etc. has
certainly shown some improvement over the pre-ATMA position. Farmers have
found high utility and relevance of knowledge gained through participation
in these programmes. The research, extension and farmers linkage through
