The Details of Organizational Level Performance of Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) under New Extension Reforms in the State of Assam

The Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA), defined as a semi-autonomous
decentralized participatory and market-driven extension model represents a shift away from
transferring technologies for major crops to diversifying output. As the ATMA programme is under
operation in Assam for the last ten years, the researchable questions may arise about to what extent
the functions of ATMA through cafeteria of activities at district level are achieved such as farmer
oriented activities, farm information dissemination, agricultural technology refinement, validation and
adoption (R-E-F-Linkage), administrative and capital expenses, innovative activities and other
innovative activities etc. Keeping in view the broad aims of the ATMA and to find out relevant answers
on the above stated questions, a study was carried out in three CSS-ATMA districts of Assam namely
Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Goalpara in the year 2015-16 with a view to find out the organizational
level performance of ATMA under new extension reforms. A purposive sampling method was followed
to select the districts for the study. The result of the findings highlighted that the trend of achievement
of cafeteria of activities as per ATMA guideline were below 50.00 per cent in the three consecutive
years viz., 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 except in few activities where the achievement of activities
under the heads “Agril. Technology Refinement, Validation and Adoption (R-E-F-Linkage)”,
“Administrative/Capital Expenses” and “Innovative Activities”, were 62.50 per cent, 59.39 per cent and
50.03 per cent respectively in the year 2013-14. On the other hand, in the year 2014-15, the
achievement of activities under the head “Other Innovative Activities” were 100.00 per cent.