Theses and Dissertations
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Item Metadata only Study of various information and services provided by different service providers in the agriculture domain(Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, 2011) Vardia, Kotish; Chaudhary, Sanjay; Reddy, P.V.This study titled “Study of various Information and Services provided by Different Service Providers in the Agriculture domain” was done under organization Rallis India ltd. Rallis has been in regular contact of farmers. It felt that farmers are in need of technical information from time to time. If some service can be provided by Rallis end to help farmers to increase their income. This will eventually help Rallis in having a satisfied customer base. This study was conducted to know about some of prominent information and service provider in market. Three information and service providers were chosen in study viz. Reuters Market Light, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited, mana Gromer Retail Outlets. The study looks for details like information provided by services provider, cost of service, duration of usage, satisfaction level of users and further improvements required in service. A structured questionnaire was prepared to take responses from subscribed farmers. Besides this information requirements and medium for information transfer views were also taken from subscribed and unsubscribed farmers. Reuters Market Light has been working in 13 states of India. They are providing information related to weather forecast, market prices and some general agriculture information’s and research innovations. The farmers interviewed were using service since duration from 1 month to 2 years. Overall 90 percent of farmers were satisfied with service and had no literacy related issue with SMS. SMS were sent in regional languages. Farmers required improvements in service like more markets be included in service, more precise weather forecast and general agriculture information should be included. IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (ISKL), collaboration between IFFCO and Airtel has developed Green Sim card for farmers. These Sim cards receive five free voice cells related to agriculture everyday as value added service. The active base of this service was found to be low. Farmer switch over to other subscribers after using talk time of sim cards and this service is limited only for Green Sim cards customers. 50 percent of surveyed active user farmers were not satisfied with service. Calls were not properly scheduled and once calls not received, information is lost for that day. Call retrieval and helpline is also provided by IKSL, but farmers are not aware about the facility. Mana Gromer Retail outlets was started by Coromandal Fertilizers to supply agriculture inputs at one place. Coromandal fertilizers have done collaboration with other inputs company to sell their produce from the outlets. Farmers’ subscriptions were done to provide services. These services include fertilizers at fixed prices, concession on inputs except fertilizers, free soil testing, accidental insurance and optional life insurance. Farmers were more interested to get fertilizers at fixed prices rather than other services. Fertilizers purchase was clubbed with pesticides sale resulting in additional burden on farmers. Soil test reports were not received by farmers. Farmers were not much satisfied with service due to faults in soil tests, insurances and limited service by outlets. Both subscribed and unsubscribed farmers were in need of information related to agriculture. Disease and pest information, weather information, market prices, fertilizer availability information, Government schemes and policies are some of the main information requirements among farmers. A precise customized information service requirement is felt among farmers. Views were taken from farmers about medium through which information could be provided to them. Various medium like SMS voice calls, field visit by experts, Helpline and SMS came out to be most favorable options by farmers. Rallis has already have crop advisors for field visits. There are information’s that can’t be even provided by crop advisors on a consistent basis. Crop advisors would not be able to interact with all farmers daily. So a helpline and SMS based advisory system is most likely to be useful for farmers. The information provided by this system, would be customized as per the requirements of farmers. The content will mainly consist of market prices, weather information, general agriculture information and government schemes. The market informationcan be taken from some organization on a regular basis. Weather information can be made available from collaboration with ISRO or Indian Meteorological Department. General agriculture information can be prepared by Rallis itself. These all content information can be sent to farmers via SMS gateways or GSM modems. This information can be provided to farmers as subscriptions schemes. Overall this service would be able to fill the gape of information among farmers. This service can also be a profitable business venture to join the agriculture services domain of Rallis.Item Metadata only Evaluation of Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme in Junagadh region of Gujarat(Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, 2011) Shyam, Wanjari Kunal; Sinha, Vikash; Hiremath, B. N.Hunger and nutritional status adversely impacts learning process of children. It contributes to increased dropout rates. Its collective impact is reflected in human development index. It is in this backdrop that Government of Gujarat had introduced MDM aimed to achieve an increase in enrolment rate and reduce dropout rates. The benefits of MDM were expected to reduce burden of poverty on poor parents and caste discrimination in the society. GoG started MDM scheme in 1984. This study is undertaken to assess the situation and take corrective measures for improvements. The objective / scope of this study is to assess effectiveness of MDM scheme in the context of impact indicators like student enrolment, dropout and attendance. The study covers critical components of MDM that include regularity, quality, physical infrastructure, hygiene, comparative analysis of rural v/s urban centres, stakeholder participation and favorable and unfavorable factors affecting the above components. The methodology includes review of relevant and available documents for secondary information, field visits to collect primary data from a wide range of stakeholders at various levels. The stakeholders include relevant government officials, school principal, teachers, parents, sanchalaks and head cooks and also members of Mother Teacher Association (MTA). The sample-size was 106 centres (at the rate of 20 percent of total centres) spread over 4 talukas in Junagadh district of Western Gujarat. The total sample size of respondents was 2014. structured questionnaires and FGD were used to capture required information. The data collected was found for interpretation which resulted in certain major findings as discussed below: Students belonging to poor and disadvantaged socio-economic households take MDM regularity. It was also noticed that some children also brought their tiffin and ate it with MDM. Some students residing in nearby school preferred to take MDM to their homes. Students and parents realized the importance of education, which is reflected by the fact that 94 percent of the students go to school irrespective of MDM and 96 percent of parents confessed that they will continue to send their children to school even if MDM is withdrawn. It is found that there are about 91 percent of schools meeting the norm of at least 200 MDM days in a year. It is observed that 82 percent of school has MDM days in the range of 200 to 210 days. Similarity, there were 211-220 number of MDM days served in around 16 percent of schools surveyed. Although the MDM scheme is being incomplete in the study area effectively, however, some areas of improvement have been identified like infrastructure, hygiene, and storage, quality of grains and satisfaction of level of beneficiaries. Details can be found in relevant section. There were 47 schools in Junagadh district having stock for less than 1 week, out of which 27 schools were having inadequate stocks and 20 schools were having sufficient stocks. Number of schools having stock for 1-2 weeks were 35, with 30 schools having sufficient stock and 5 schools having inadequate stock. Similarity schools having stocks for 2-4 weeks were 17, with 15 schools having inadequate stock and 2 schools with sufficient stock. It was observed that about 30 percent of schools surveyed had the sanchalaks keeping stock at home, despite having the storage facility at the centre. There were also some schools where MDM was cooked at sanchalak’s home despite having kitchen shed facility. Comparison of urban and rural MDM profile was undertaken in the context of percentage of beneficiaries with respect to total enrolments. Increase in enrolment rate, quantity served, food taste, storage system and disruption in regularity of MDM. The urban centres fared better on enrolment rates, storage system and disruption in MDM regularity. Taking into account the successful management of MDM at the grass roots by NGOs it is recommended to scale up the model under MDM scheme. Partnership with women SHG and Sakhi Mandals can also be considered for MDM. Principals, teachers and particularly MTA should be sensitized to play proactive role to ensure effective and transparent implementation of MDM through community-based monitoring mechanism. In order to overcome the issue of delayed payment to cooks, the school management may frame a process of bill submission and verification online through its website.Item Metadata only Evaluation of Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme in Western and North-East regions of Gujarat(Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, 2011) Chand, Naveen; Sinha, Vikash; Hiremath, B. N.Hunger and nutritional status adversely impacts learning process of children. It contributes to increased dropout rates. Its collective impact is reflected in human development index. To address these issues Government of Gujarat (GoG) had introduced MDM scheme aimed to achieve an increase an enrollment rate and reduce burden of poverty on poor parents and caste discrimination in the society. GoG started MDM scheme in 1984. This study has been commissioned to assess the situation and take corrective measures for improvements. The objectives of this study are to assess effectiveness of MDM scheme in the context of impact indicators that include student enrollment, dropout and attendance. The study covers critical components of MDM that include regularity, quantity, quality, cooking infrastructure adequacy, hygiene, rural v/s urban and also stakeholder participation. The study has factored in favorable and unfavorable elements affecting the above components. The methodology includes review of relevant and available documents for secondary data, field visits to collect primary data from a wide range of stakeholders at various levels. The stakeholders include relevant government officials, school principal, teachers, parents, sanchalaks and head cooks and members of Mother Teacher Association (MTA). The sample-size was 42 centers spread over 11 talukas of 5 disticts. Structured questionnaires and FGDs were used to capture required information. The data collected was analyzed and triangulated for interpretation. A short summary of findings is given below, for details, please refer to relevant chapters.