The present study was undertaken during the year 2015. The main objectives of this study was to assess the role performance of agricultural extension workers of south India and constraints perceived by them in their role performance. For this study, data were collected from the 400 extension workers of agriculture and allied departments of southern India during off campus training programmes of Extension Education Institute conducted during the year 2015. The data were collected with help of questionnaire through personal interview and analyzed with the help of suitable statistical methods. The study reveals that the majority of the respondents (55%) were moderate role performers, whereas a fair 37 per cent of the respondents were Good role performers. Only 8 per cent of respondents were found to be poor role performers. The results indicated that there is substantial scope for increasing role performance of Extension workers. The results showed that majority of the officers were satisfactorily performing the roles such as Advocacy on farmers interests (97%), Facilitation and feed back to the farmers regarding agricultural activities (90%), issuing advisories on soil health management , water conservation , pest and disease management and other technical areas (89%), capacity building and skill development in emerging areas (79%) and providing information on ongoing schemes and programs in agriculture and allied sectors (67%). Among all constraints, the administrative and financial constraints were ranked high by a high majority (>90%) as major constraints in their Job performance.

Keyword: Soil health management; Water conservation; Skill development; Financial constraints; Job performance;