Role of MIS in the Management of Agriculture Extension Programmes

For example, in India, the national agricultural extension system employs about 125,000 people. Extension managers at various levels need relevant information in order to make effective decisions. In the absence of such information, they act only on the basis of their intuition and past experience. Data that have been processed, stored, and presented properly will aid them in analysing situations and to make effective decisions.

As suggested above, at every phase of the management process, managers need information in order to make effective decisions. This we call management information. It does not include purely functional information or technical information, such as packages of practices for rice or wheat cultivation. Management information is the information required by managers as they make their decisions, such as the number of extension personnel employed by category, their training requirements, career development plans, job descriptions, budgets, forecasts, benchmark surveys, reports on socioeconomic conditions of people served, and existing facilities.