Central Government Approved Rs 108 Crore For Integrated Digital Agriculture Platform

The Central government has authorized Rs 108 crore for the Integrated Digital Agriculture Platform project that was submitted to the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare by the Himachal Pradesh Agriculture department.

The decision was announced by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, who hailed the Central government for sanctioning Rs 108 crore for the project.

Thakur explained that the 'Transformation in Agriculture Using Emerging Technologies' project would build in-house competency in providing ICT-based services to farmers, reducing administrative processes and increasing efficiencies, and ensuring on-demand delivery of agriculture services to farmers with the goal of improving the quality of agriculture produce.

The project’s goal is to create a single sign-on platform for various schemes of the department (both State and Centrally sponsored) which would standardize and simplify procedures for applying to various schemes (Cash and in-kind) of the department and transfer the benefit directly into the accounts of the beneficiaries while cutting down the delay in the disbursement process, according to the CM.

He also indicated that a Market Information System will be developed to give visibility into demand and supply projections, product price realisation, and access to the national e-market platform. The suggested solution would also include a centralised directory for input providers and the status availability of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, equipment or tools, and machinery, as well as their GIS locations.

Jai Ram went on to say that his project aims to create an integrated farmer database, Application Programming Interface (API) Integration, Traceability Platform, Automated Farm Extension Serveries, customised dashboards, data analytics and centralised reports, as well as a farmer field school application.

He went on to say that the planned initiative would leverage an IT-enabled ecosystem that would benefit farmers, the department, and other stakeholders.