Livestock extension services in India are delivered by multifarious agencies among which public extension services is the major stakeholder, but has failed in its activities and functions due to lack of human resource, infrastructural, budgetary constraints etc. Today, extension services have been questioned for its linear understanding of knowledge and technology transfer or brokering from researchers to farmers. In this context, intermediary or broker agencies or organizations is very relevant to play a role in bridging, bonding, and linking social capital which differs from traditional extension and R&D. “ Innovation intermediary or broker â€ is defined as an organization or body that acts as an agent or broker in any aspect of the innovation process between two or more parties which include multitude of intermediary activities in innovation system. Although, several types of innovation brokers operate at different levels in different sectors, the authors have focused on the role of rural telecentres as brokers in Livestock Innovation System (LIS). The paper includes the role and importance of telecentres by highlighting their activities as effective innovation brokers to bridge the gap between multi-stakeholders. Further, few experiences of telecentres in livestock sector has been drawn to understand the effectiveness of different innovation brokerage mechanisms. An attempt has also been made to emphasize the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of telecentres as innovation brokers in India for effective LIS. The paper concludes that although, telecentres are effective to a great extent for implementation of LIS in India, there is a need to focus on stimulating and enabling the institutional innovations needed to allow these telecentres to emerge and grow organically in context-specific ways. Since these innovations brokering models cannot be directly copied from one context to the other as best-fit solutions, need based and context specific innovation brokers must be developed for agricultural and animal husbandry development in India and other developing countries.

Keyword: Livestock extension services; Public extension services; Livestock Innovation System (LIS); Telecentres;