A Failed INTERNET intervention ? PASHUBAZAR

There are numerous applications in the market which gives you the platform to buy or sell vegetables, fruits, grains, groceries, wardrobe, electronic product and the list is quite inexhaustible. Apps and websites which deals with the farmer and their products are also coming up lately, and in this league, Telangana govt brought an application last year which makes buying and selling animals easier.

This website is called “pashubazar.com” and provides a platform to sell or purchase animals online, not to mention, WITHOUT ANY HASSLE, as they quote it. Special Chief Secretary, Animal Husbandry, Suresh Chanda launched the website in 2017. Though after a year since its launch the word has not reached to the parts of the state properly from where the farmers are supposed to have reaped the benefits.

Rural India, where just infrastructure is not the problem but also education is, It is not so sane to deliver the application without any proper service. The authority has commented that the youth shall take measures to help the community to deal with the portal, but passing on responsibilities to the citizen, for execution of the same, seems like a blur vision.

Krishi Jagran surveyed few districts of Telangana including Karimnagar, Jaya Shankar Bhupalpally, Mahabubnagar and more for the awareness of the application. It was found only few farmers knew of the application and those who knew did not have provisions to use the same. Though the portal has enough potential to bring forward a helping hand to the farmers but this would only be a cosmetic change if the government does not plan the execution well.

BACKGROUND

In a rural setting where communication still does not happen in the speed of bits/bytes per seconds, it becomes little difficult to have a smooth trade of animals. Purchasing and Selling of animals poses difficulty in villages, where the options of such haats/bazaars ( market) is limited. It adds up to the plight of the farmer to carry the animal to the market, only to bring it back with disappointment if the sale does not take place. Also it is not always possible to find the animal of one’s choice at such haats. Taking animals physically to weekly markets involves expenditure on travel, care of animal and day long loss of wages/work for the farmer. Further, if animal could not be sold in weekly market, it has to again travel back home. This platform eliminates all that and creates wide publicity for sale of his animals so that farmer gets better price.

Scraping all such problems, Govt. Of Telangana launched the website last year, where farmers can sell or purchase animals . A farmer can simply login to the website and start the selling or purchasing of the animals . The website is maintained as per the orders of the Department of Veterinary Affairs and will soon be in full force. The farmer is supposed to enter his/her details like- the name of the owner of the animal, name of the District, contact number  and a description of the animals is to be given at the portal, which includes the condition of the animals, productivity  in terms of average milk it gives per day etc. alongwith the picture of the animal. After registering at the portal the user will receive an OTP, which is to be processed at the website.

Each owner has the opportunity to register on the online website with not more than four registrations. If one wants to go beyond that, they will have to delete a previous registration. However, each registration is available only for a month.

The website also provides facility for prospective buyers a wide choice of animals to buy or sell including cattle, goat, buffaloes, hen etc.