Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister, Sh Radha Mohan Singh launched two mobile apps for the farmers in N Delhi on Wednesday. Mobile app ”Crop Insurance” will help the farmers find out complete details about insurance cover available in their area and Mobile apps “AgriMarket Mobile” can be used by the farmers to get the market prices of crops in the mandi within 50 km radius of the device and other mandis in the country.
Releasing the apps Sh Radha Mohan Singh said that Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare is organising “Kishan Jai Vigyan Week”to celebrate birth anniversary of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Ch. Charan Singh, from 25th December.
Launching of mobile apps is the part of the week long celebrations. He said it has been constant endeavour of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare to make available all relevant and timely information to the farmers and other stake holders so as to create a conducive environment for raising farm productivity and income to global levels.
It is in this direction that an ambitious project known as National e-Governance Plan in agriculture (NeGP-A) has been launched. Besides providing hardware up to the block levels offices in all States/UTs, the project also includes development of 12 clusters of services (with over 65 discrete websites/applications).
The Minister said that out of these 36 applications and web portals have already been rolled out and are in use by different departments and other stakeholders across Centre and States/UTs. Some of these are mKisan, Farmers Portal, Insurance Portal, Nowcast, Plant Quarantine Information Systems, revamped Agmarknet and Kisan Knowledge Management System etc. The project also includes making these services available through multiple delivery channels like web based, through Touch Screen Kiosks, SMS, USSD and mobiles.
Internet penetration in rural India is still abysmally low, however number of mobiles with the farmers and in hinterlands is rising at a very fast pace. He said that Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has therefore decided to make all its existing and future services available through mobile platforms. mKisan portal of the ministry has been a resounding success in this regard. Today we have approximately 2 crore farmers registered with us for receiving SMS advisories which are being sent by officers and scientists across all States/UTs, ICAR, IMD and Agriculture Universities.