ATMA  in TamilNadu :

In order to involve farmers’ groups in planning and implementation and empowering them to achieve best results in transfer of technology, a centrally sponsored scheme to support State Extension Reforms has been implemented in Tamil Nadu on Pilot basis in 9 districts covering 133 blocks through Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) with,funding pattern of 90:10 between Government of India and State Government. In addition,,the Government of India has accorded permission to extend the ATMA scheme to the remaining 19 districts covering remaining 248 blocks except Nilgiris and Chennai districts. TAWDEVA (Tamil Nadu Watershed Development Agency) has been nominated as State Nodal Agency for all 28 ATMA districts. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore has been nominated as State Agricultural Management Extension Training Institute (SAMETI) The pilot scheme of ATMA in 9 districts has been implemented from September 2006 after creation of administrative structure at Block level exclusively for ATMA represented by officials of all the departments, farmer representatives, women and NGO representatives. Farmer representatives representing Agriculture and 9 line departments formulating block action plans to fulfill their local needs and farmer representatives at block level representing Farmer Advisory Committee is monitoring the implementation of Block Level ATMA activities ATMA is fulfilling the needs of training, demonstrations, Farmer interest Group formation, Capacity Building and Revolving funds, Interstate and Inter-district exposure visits. The best performing farmers and the district ATMAs are felicitated with awards at Block, District and State Levels. So far, 1575 trainings were conducted at village and district level, 4877 demonstrations were laid, 45 interstate and 77 inter district exposure visits were arranged, Out of 351 Commodity Interest Groups formed, training for capacity building for the empowerment of the members was conducted and 327 groups were disbursed with seed money / revolving funds. Nearly 28,200 farmers were directly benefited and more than 55,000 farmers were indirectly benefited. The Government of India released Rs.391.00 lakhs for the years 2005-07 out of which a sum of Rs.322.419 lakhs has been utilized. During 2007-08, a sum of Rs.399.14 lakhs has been released for 9 ATMA districts and a sum of Rs.280.00 lakhs for the remaining 19 districts. During 2008-09, this scheme will be implemented in 28 districts at a cost of Rs.2019.30 lakhs.

Source: http://www.tn.gov.in/policynotes/pdf/agriculture/agriculture.pdf