The National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE)—a part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Government
of India has introduced a cyber extension initiative, which provides for quick dissemination of technological information from the agricultural research system to farmers in the field and the relaying of their feedback to the system.

MANAGE kiosks, set up in the Ranga Reddy district (at the periphery of the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad) of Andhra Pradesh, provide farmers access to the website of MANAGE to get information about training programmes of MANAGE and other agricultural training institutions in and around Hyderabad. The farmers access the district website, www.rangareddydistrict.com to know about all the development schemes of the district.

The information access at the village level is putting pressure on the middle and senior level state officers for delivering programmes and schemes. They are also under constant pressure as transparency throughout the system has improved. The villagers know their eligibility for housing loans, crop loans and other schemes and they are able to inform the concerned officers about their demands with supporting documents, very much in time, thanks to information availability through the websites.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has opened 8 Rythu Bazars (Farmers’ Markets), where farmers can bring their produce and sell the same to the consumers directly. MANAGE has arranged to host the Rythu Bazar prices on its website and all the farmers can have access to these prices very early in the morning everyday. Besides the Rythu Bazar prices, the general market prices of agricultural produce, across the whole country is also accessible to these Village Information Kiosks, through Agriwatch.com., which has given free access to their website to the 11 villages where the kiosks function.

Besides websites, the rural community in these villages is using CD-based learning packages for making pickles, learning about maternity and child health, importance of child education, issues regarding child labour, nutritional aspects and also expert systems on crops. A number of families have taken up pickle preparation and are taking their produce to the Rythu Bazars regularly. The CD on pickle preparation (which is in the local language) is a big hit in all the 11 villages. Telugu websites are also very popular.