Aquaculture and Allied Activities among Clientele of a Coastal KVK

Aquaculture farms are often in dispersed locations that are difficult to reach and taking into account their high-tech farming practices, the need for the utilization of Information Communication Tech-nologies (ICTs) for information access is very critical. On the other hand, various coastal Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in India are electronically connected through internet facilities for sharing the information among all stakeholders. Data were collected from 60 clients of a coastal KVK at Kattupakkam in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu to assess the extent of utilization of ICT based dissemination tools for aquaculture and allied activities. The utilization quotient obtained from the respondents ranged from 52.78 to 88.89 with mean of 63.19. The utilization of ICT dissemination system were through mobile phones (88.89%), video films (83.33%), television (69.44%) and audio CDs (66.67%). Pearson’s product moment correlation analysis revealed that the variables viz., education, extension media contact, training exposure, knowledge in ICT and participation in ICT project activities had significant and positive relationship with utilization of ICT while age had negative relationship. The step-wise regression analysis further revealed that 82.5 % of the variation in the utilization of ICT can be accounted by the combined effect of five independent variables such as knowledge gained through ICT, education, participation in ICT activi-ties, extension media contact and training exposure. The key problems hindering the use of ICTs in the farming operations were, lack of ICT based technica