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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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Subject: Agricultural Extension Education × Author: Mahendra, Abhishek × Start date: 2023 × Type: Thesis ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Assessment of perceived benefits and support service apropos PM-KUSUM Scheme in Rajasthan
    (RPCAU, Pusa, 2023) Mahendra, Abhishek; Lal, Sudhanand Prasad
    The study entitled “Assessment of perceived benefits and support service apropos PM-KUSUM Scheme in Rajasthan”. The study was carried out with specific objectives to assess the perceived benefits and support service of PM-KUSUM scheme along with the association between independent and dependent variables selected in the study. Rajasthan was chosen purposively for the study as Rajasthan has the largest installed capacity of renewable power generation units in India and also shown the fastest growth in solar power generation capacity. Rajasthan has 33 districts out of which top 5 districts having maximum number of PM-KUSUM beneficiaries as on MNRE portal was selected purposively and out of top 5 districts 3 districts namely Jaipur, Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh was selected using systematic random sampling technique. Further, two tehsils from each district were selected randomly. For selection of respondents, 20 PM-KUSUM beneficiaries from each of the six selected tehsils were chosen as sample respondents by following the random sampling technique. Thus, a total of 120 PM-KUSUM beneficiaries were constituted as sample respondents for the study purpose. The information was collected through personal interview method by visiting the farm and home of the respondents. The collected data were analyzed with the help of frequency distribution, arithmetic mean, standard deviation and regression analysis, binary logistic regression (LR). The study reveals that the majority (72.5%) of the respondents were found under the medium age group (36-50 years) with 54.3% having small size families, majority (40%) had completed a College Education while 19% achieved a Higher Secondary level of education and 18% had a Secondary level of education, 70% having medium farming experience, 62.5% showed medium level of risk orientation, 55% had medium level of income and 14.16 % had high level of income, beneficiaries (57.5%) belonged to the small and semi-medium category of land holding, while 38.34% were medium and large farmers, substantial majority of the beneficiaries (70.84 percent) have a medium level of exposure to mass media channels, significant majority of the beneficiaries (59.17 percent) showed a high level of economic motivation, majority of the respondents (53.50 percent) displayed a high level of awareness about the PM-KUSUM scheme. The regression analysis of perceived benefits concludes that only 5 factors were found significant. The variable age, education, economic motivation, and mass media were found to be significant at 1% level of probability while family size was found to be significant at 5% level of probability. The model exhibits a good fit (Adjusted R Square = 0.404), and its predictions are relatively accurate (Std. Error of the Estimate = 2.148). The absence of significant autocorrelation (Durbin-Watson = 2.143) further validates the reliability of the regression model. The binary logistic regression model (LR) variable “Education, Family size, Farming Experience and Economic Motivation” is significant at the 1% level of probability and variables “Mass Media Exposure, and Awareness” are significant at the 5% level of probability for support service. The connection between awareness and mass media for accessing support services is remarkable, as a mere 1 unit increase in awareness and mass media corresponds to a significant 75% and 25% increase in the likelihood of receiving the necessary support services.