ICTs for Capacity Building and Knowledge Exchange: Establishment of Village Knowledge Centres in Assam (January 2019)

Demand driven and value-added information is very important for the rural community to undertake informed decisions. The capacity building and knowledge exchange initiatives on locally suitable agro-ecological and climate smart technologies among men and women farmers are important in building resilient agricultural production systems. Modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are important to facilitate learning and timely knowledge sharing. RESILIENCE project is providing a platform to facilitate dialogue between farmers and other stakeholders including market agencies.  To improve access to locale specific information and promote learning among farmers, the project intends to harness the recent developments and innovations in the mobile telephony and Internet technologies by establishing Village Knowledge Centre (VKC). The VKC is basically equipped with a computer and internet facility and provides dynamic information necessary to the villagers based on their need. A VKC is connected to a Village Resource Center (VRC), which will be the main hub, located at central point. It will mobilize and process the needed information and delivers it to the spokes (refer to the figure 1). Trained Knowledge Workers (KWs) will manage the VRC and VKCs. 
 

VKC functions as a conduit for information, knowledge, and skill transfer to rural communities. It covers various sectors such as agriculture, animal husbandry, health, education and government programs. VKCs can be accessed by all irrespective of caste, class, gender and or age. Need-based content creation is regularly done on the basis of the need assessment and feedback from the local women and men who visit the centre. The local village people are trained in the management of modern ICT tools, including the operation of computer and hardware maintenance. While the VRC is managed by a professional and able to link with local Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s (KVK), research institutions, line departments especially agriculture, livestock, sericulture, agri business entities etc, private sectors and local and regional markets.

With the support and cooperation of Assam Agricultural University and local stakeholders suitable sites were selected for VKCs and VRCs in Sibsagar and Golaghat districts in Assam during January 2019. The VRC will be placed in the Regional Rice Research Station, Titabar. With reference to choosing the site for VKCs, the local men and women farmers views in the respective clusters as well as the near by KVKs suggestion were sought. The team made a visit to seven different places in the villages and discussed the pros and cons of the locations and finalized with the participation of farmers.