Kisan Call Centres Equipped with State- of- the- Art Technology for Serving the Farmers

Kisan Call Centres Equipped with State- of- the- Art Technology for Serving the Farmers
The Ministry of Agriculture, launched the Kisan Call Centre (KCC) Scheme in the country on January, 21, 2004. At present the Kisan Call Centres are functioning from 14 locations of the country. All KCC locations are accessible by dialing single toll free number 1800-180-1551 from 6.00 AM to 10.00 PM on all 7 days a week nationwide. This number is accessible through all mobile numbers of all telecom networks as well as land lines.

In order to improve the participation of State Governments to strengthen these Kisan Call Centres, following initiatives have been taken by the Ministry of Agriculture:

(i) Identification of a State level Nodal Officer for KCC by each State.

(ii) The State Government have been requested to closely associate in supervising the quality of information provided by the KCC agents and also in escalation of unanswered calls to experts at different levels for correct answer to farmers.

(iii) Launching a major publicity campaign through print/electronic media for creating awareness about the scheme

(iv) Identifying group of experts from the State to assist KCC agents in answering the farmers’ queries, which the KCC agent is not able to answer, in a call conferencing mode.

(v) Keeping the KCC agents apprised of all new schemes and programmes being implemented in the state.

(vi) Organizing interaction of KCC agents with the Divisional/Zonal level officers of the State Agriculture and allied departments every month.

(vii) Getting weekly feedback from KCC regarding nature of calls including area specific prevalence of crop diseases, pest infestation etc.

The Ministry has identified IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (IKSL) as Service Provider of Kisan Call Centre Scheme who have deployed 278 Call Centre Agents (including 20 Supervisors) to respond to the farmers’ calls.

The present Kisan Call Centres are equipped with the state- of- the- art technology having a number of new features viz. Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange (IPPBX), redundant Internet bandwidth, 100% call recording/ call replay, call barging, voice mail service during call waiting or when KCC is not working, SMS to caller farmers giving a gist of reply given by KCC.

The existing 14 Kisan Call Centres are serving the needs of farmers in the entire country. However, the State-wise call flow is being closely monitored at these KCCs. As and when calls increase beyond a threshold in a particular State, decision regarding setting up of a new Kisan Call Centre in that State would be taken.

This information was given by MOS for Agriculture, Shri Tariq Anwar in a reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

MP:DS:CP:KCC (26.2.2013)
(Release ID :92560)