Government ropes in IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited to improve Kisan Call Centres

NEW DELHI: The government has roped IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (IKSL) through a competitive bid to restructure Kisan Call Centres (KCCs) - a voice based farmers' advisory service. The new service provider will set up state of the art KCCs at identified locations.

The restructured KCCs will be more professional backed up by technological innovations which include flashing SMS to caller farmers providing a gist of advisories given to them on phone, call barging by experts and officers, video conferencing, on line monitoring of KCCs and providing latest versions of guide books and booklets on modern agricultural practices among others," said minister of state for agriculture and food processing industries Harish Rawat.

The rising popularity of KCCs have prompted the government modernise and add more value to its toll free voice based advisory service.

A study on evaluation of the impact of conducted by Administrative Staff College of India revealed that 84% of the farmers expressed overall satisfaction regarding the advice provided to them by call centre agents.

The study also pointed out that KCC advice resulted in effective control of pests, weeds and diseases and better management of fertilizer use. It enabled farmers to take timely decisions and in the process crop production and productivity went up.

KCCs are accessible by dialing a single nation-wide toll free number 1800-180-1551 through landline as well as mobile numbers of all telecom networks. These call centres deal with farm related queries in 22 languages across 13 locations.