The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has initiated ‘Student READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana)’ programme for the final year students of the undergraduate programme to provide rural entrepreneurship awareness, practical experience in real-life situation in rural agriculture and creating awareness to under graduate students about practical agriculture and allied sciences.
Rural Awareness Work Experience Programme (RAWEP)
Rural Awareness Work Experience Programme (RAWEP) for under graduate students is being implemented for the 4th year UG students during their VII and VIII semesters of study. The entire batch undergoes RAWEP and ELP programmes simultaneously (half of the batch undergoes RAWEP and the other ELP, In the next semester each batch interchanges).
The duration of the programme is 14 weeks including NSS and RBK activities.
In order to meet the objectives of the programme, each student is attached to one host farmer. Every student is expected to work for a semester with farmers within the vicinity of research stations of the university. This is an unique opportunity for the students to work with the farmers at their farms and to identify various production, protection and marketing constraints. In addition, RAWEP develops competency in the areas of technological, managerial and communication skills among the students.
In order to expose the students to the farming situations, the students are made to visit nearby research stations and KVKs to interact with farmers and to observe various demonstrations. The students are also encouraged to participate in the activities like farmers advisory cells, plant protection advisory cell etc.
The main components of the programme include crop production, plant protection, rural economics, extension programme and research station activities and exposure visit to Agri based industries to acquaint themselves with the organizational setup, the functioning and to gain first hand information of the industries.
Every student has to work with RBKs (Rythu Bharosa Kendras) of their respective RAWEP villages @ 3 students / 1 RBK for a period of 30 days each.
The undergraduate students in their final year get stipend of Rs. 11,000/- per semester @ Rs. 3,000/- per month with the financial assistance received from JCDR Educational Society during their RAWEP
Internship programme:
Every Student shall identify their work areas of interest and participate in internship program for a period of 6 weeks during RAWEP. The students are attached to the firms like Fertilizer companies, tissue culture labs, national seed corporations, dairy units, vermi compost units, processing units and other related industries for in-plant training/ industrial attachment.
