N. B. JadavROSE MATHEWS2021-06-022021-06-022019-07https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810169487India is an agro based developing country with about 68.84 per cent population living in rural area. Agricultural extension is a service or system which assists farmers through educational procedures in improving farming methods and techniques, increasing production efficiency and income, bettering their levels of living and lifting the social and educational standards of rural life. In recent times however, there has been revolution with regards to ICT in agriculture particularly in extension service delivery. ICT has potential to respond to a number of challenges that confront public extension systems. With this consideration, the problem entitled ‘ICT exposure of extension personnel in Saurashtra region’ was undertaken. The study was conducted in Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Six districts were selected randomly out of eleven districts and a total of 120 respondents were selected proportionately from each six districts. In respect to characteristics majority (53.33 per cent) of the extension personnel were middle aged, more than three-fourth (80.00 per cent) were males, majority (60.83 per cent) had M.Sc. degree as educational status, more than half (64.17 per cent) had medium work experience, exactly three-fourth (75.00 per cent) belonged to rural area, majority (62.50 per cent) had medium achievement motivation, majority (65.84 per cent) had medium level of innovation proneness, majority (60.84 per cent) had medium job commitment, more than half (59.17 per cent) had medium attitude, slightly more than half (55.00 per cent) had medium level of knowledge about ICT, 53.34 per cent had medium level of mass media liveliness, majority (43.34 per cent) had low level of professional zeal, majority (61.67 per cent) had not undergone any training on ICT and 63.33 per cent had medium level of infrastructure facilities. Majority (65.00 per cent) of the extension personnel had medium level of ICT utilization followed by 20.00 per cent and 15.00 per cent with high and low level of utilization respectively. Out of fifteen independent variables; social participation, mass media liveliness, training undergone and infrastructure facilities had positive and significant relationship with ICT utilization of extension personnel. Educational status, innovation proneness, attitude, knowledge about ICTs had positive and highly significant relationship with ICT utilization of extension personnel. Age had highly significant and negative association with ICT utilization of extension personnel. The characteristics viz., gender, work experience, native place, achievement motivation, job commitment and professional zeal had non-significant association with ICT utilization of extension personnel. The important constraints faced by the extension personnel were lack of training on ICT, high cost and lack of fund for equipments, lack of farmers interest in ICT based transfer of technology, poor infrastructure facilities, poor technical know-how, lack of motivation to use ICT based extension, difficulty in developing content in local language, slow internet connectivity, adverse effect on eyesight and back ache/headache/ hand pain. The suggestions offered by extension personnel to overcome the constraints were adequate and timely training on ICT, maintenance of already installed equipments should be regular, awareness about the uses and effectiveness of ICT among various stakeholders, enough fund should be provided for ICT facilities and services, uninterrupted power and internet facilities should be ensured and selection of ICT tools should be proper, location specific and need based.EnglishThesis