The Division of Agricultural Extension at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), Pusa, New Delhi, offers vital services to bridge research and farming communities. Key initiatives include the Pusa Avlokan Cell, which has hosted over 56,000 visitors (students, faculty, extension officers, and farmers) from 2017-2026 across 29 states for hands-on exposure to IARI's research, teaching, and extension activities; Pusa Samachar, a popular YouTube series with multimedia agro-advisories, WhatsApp helpline support, and weather updates reaching 64,000 subscribers; and the Experiential Learning Unit (ELU) on Multimedia and Advanced Graphics, launched in 2025, which builds skills in videography, editing, and content creation while generating crop modules, educational videos, and promotional materials for farmers, students, and faculty.

Pusa Avlokan Cell The Pusa Avlokan Cell constituted under the chairmanship of Head, Division of Agricultural Extension is designated to provide a brief tour of ICAR-IARI, New Delhi to visitors visiting ICAR-IARI under different academic programs (Student READY etc.). The cell mainly caters to the students of various SAU’s who visits IARI under Student READY program for exposure and hands on experience of the research, teaching and extension activities being carried out at IARI. The cell also coordinates the visits of school’s children, trainees and dignitaries from other organizations.

The objectives of Pusa Avlokan Cell (Information Cell) are to diligently handle all activities pertaining to the efficient organization of the various visits. This includes coordinating with visitor’s parent institute, organizing scientist-students interactions, coordinating and organizing visits to different research facilities of IARI, maintaining comprehensive records of all visits and overall managing email correspondence related to the activities of the cell.” 

During 2017-2026, 72,284 students and faculty from 189 different organizations (SAU’/Schools/ and other institute/universities) from 29 different states visited IARI. Most of the students were from State Agriculture Universities (TNAU, IGKV, UAS, KAU, SKUAST-K, Anand Agriculture University etc.) followed by students from schools (mostly situated at Delhi-NCR region) belonging to class 6^th to 12^th also visited IARI. The visitors were taken to various research facilities, Experimental Farms, divisions, and labs as per their requests.

Most of the SAUs teams preferred visiting fields and protected cultivation (polyhouses) such as UVRD, IFS Model, CPCT etc. The students from schools preferred visiting labs such as Genomics labs at Discovery Centre, Phytotron, Plant pathology labs etc. for getting first-hand experience on experimental research work.

Table: List of visitors from different states. (2017-2026)

Multimedia based Extension Services

Pusa Samachar covers a broad range of crops and agricultural technologies, including cereals (rice, wheat, maize, and millets), pulses (chickpea, lentil, pigeon pea, and mung bean), vegetables (onion, garlic, tomato, chili, carrot, and leafy greens), fruits (mango, guava, papaya, melon, and lemon), and oilseeds (mustard and soybean). It also features important topics such as integrated farming systems, terrace gardening, beekeeping, vermicomposting, protected cultivation, kitchen gardening, and biofertilizers. The initiative aims to provide simple, reliable, and actionable information to help farmers improve productivity and adopt sustainable agricultural practices.

Farmer Advisory  Pusa Samachar offers simple and helpful advice for farmers through its WhatsApp helpline called Pusa WhatsApp Salah at 9560297502. This free service has already solved over 19,000 problems for farmers across India. Farmers can send photos, videos or messages about their crop issues—like pests, diseases or soil problems—and get quick answers from IARI experts, often within hours. This direct help saves crops

and boosts better farming results. Every Saturday's YouTube episode also includes easy-to-understand weather updates for your area. These cover rain forecasts, temperature changes and tips on when to water, spray or harvest, helping you plan work and avoid losses from bad weather.

Experiential Learning unit (ELU): Multimedia and Advanced Graphics

Division has established Experiential Learning Unit (ELU) on “Multimedia and Advanced Graphics” to develop skills among faculty and students with respect to techniques including sound recording, graphics, television, photography, videotaping, lighting, editing methods and handling multimedia equipment’s. Trained students can find employment as multimedia producer/designers for different government and corporate organizations for digital productions of videos, modules, posters, pamphlets, folders, animation, web content etc. ELU is well equipped with all equipment’s for audio and video editing. It includes Digital Video camera, Computer, accessories, Voice recorder, Printer, PICO Projectors, Tripods, collar mics and advanced software’s for preparing multimedia modules like Adobe Premier Pro CC, Adobe Flash, Photoshop, coral draw. This lab has special utility for recording, editing video based multi-media modules under different ongoing projects.

Activities Undertaken

A. Skill Enhancement Courses at ELU

• B.Sc. Community Science (First Year) batch (8 students) underwent the Skill Enhancement Course titled “Audio Visual Aids for Communication” (0+2) during Semester-I (2024–25), where they received hands-on training in video making, editing, audio-video mixing, script development, and module designing.

B. Video-based Module Generation at ELU

• A total of 44 video-based crop modules for farmers were recorded and edited for the official YouTube channel of IARI, New Delhi under “Pusa Samachar”.

Photographs of Experiential Learning

Photographs showcasing activities under the “Multimedia and Advanced Graphics” Experiential Learning Unit (ELU), Division of Agricultural Extension, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi.

Students practicing video editing techniques at ELU, ICAR-IARI New Delhi