Guided by the principle of an informed farmer is an empowered farmer, the Madhya Pradesh farmer welfare and agriculture development department took the initiative of bringing the benefits of ICT to the farming community in Madhya Pradesh. In an agriculture dominant economy like India, the objective of www.mpkrishi.org was to provide an easy and flowing platform to the farming community. The portal helps farmers in accessing need based information and avail departmental advisory and extension services in a simple and transparent manner at their doorsteps.

Kamal Jain, assistant director, farmer welfare and agriculture development, Madhya Pradesh Government points out, The idea was to develop an integrated, easy and at the same time, low-cost delivery mechanism for servicing the farming community. This will help them in availing extension and advisory services, all at their doorsteps for enhancing their income from agricultural enterprise.

His department, which is engaged in agriculture development, introduced various schemes for the farming community. And the quantum of schemes can be gauged from the fact that the department currently employs around 14,000 employees directly or indirectly related to agriculture. However, managing the huge infrastructure of the department along with monitoring of schemes and the workforce was a huge task in itself. Therefore to facilitate better functioning, MIS was required, says Jain.

The project, therefore, included development of a web-based Application Software Monitoring and Management Information Decision Support System (MIDSS). Costing Rs 7.8 crore the project included setting up the requisite infrastructure, undertaking training of the department staff, and creating backlog of data entry of previous years data.

www.mpkrishi.org
The web based portal presently offers three types of servicesgovernment to consumer (in this case consumer is the farmer); government to business (includes agencies associated with agriculture processing industries like fertilizer and pesticide companies; banks and credit institutions, etc which essentially require agriculture data); and government to government (including internal MIS and communication within the agriculture department employees).

In the government to consumer G2C segment, static information is provided on the portal on different aspects of agriculture like package practices of different crops, farm management practices including crop management technology, water and soil conservation technology, pesticides disease management technology, etc. Besides, farmers can also access information on the weather, rainfall, temperature and natural calamities through respective links and possible warnings of probable effects and advices accordingly.

Since the farmer would not be aware of the website for accessing weather related information, on the portal itself we have provided links of the IMD department on the portal itself, Jain adds. In a similar vein, the portal also provides latest information related to the mandi rates by providing links of the respective mandis on the portal enabling real-time updation on changes in the rates of farm produce at the mandis.

The portal also displays department related information on various programs and schemes. This includes different components of schemes, such as eligibility criteria as well as contact details of department functionaries right from the block level up to the state level. This enables farmers to contact officials directly in case of any grievances.

Another useful feature of the portal, says Jain is the Interactive service segment wherein the farmers can interact with the portal directly. The Ask for Advice or salah se samadhan section wherein the farmer can post his query online is a much used one. There is also a public grievance redressal section wherein once the complaint is filed, it gets raised to the next level, if not resolved within one week at the district level and one month at the state level.

Apart from providing agri-related data to the farming community, the portal is also used for internal department related activities like sending and receiving emails from other staff members. The portal is also used to access human resource related information of the agriculture department ie, displaying the gradation list which will enable any employee posted in the remotest block to see when is he due for promotion, his seniority list, his cadre, etc.

Roadblocks
Similar to any other e-governance initiative, lack of awareness both at the user end and the provider end continues to be a major hindrance in this project as well. The problems were more complicated in this case since most farmers havent even heard of IT, leave alone operating a PC. The problem of getting the farmers comfortable with a PC can only be addressed suitably once the CSCs are rolled out across all the districts of the state, Jain answers.

And till the time CSCs are rolled out, factors like availability of infrastructure coupled with lack of basic computer operating skills in the farming community will hinder growth of such projects.

In order to provide ready access to the Internet at the block level, the department rolled out Kisan Gyan Soochna Kendras in 313 blocksthese are the lowest level executive offices. The objective of these kendras was to provide free service delivery to the farmers ie, the farmer could come into the kendras and access the portal, take printouts of relevant informationall free of cost. Around Rs 20,000 was allocated for setting up these kendras including a PC with Internet connectivity, printer, UPS, informs Jain. A total of Rs 780.61 lakh has been approved by the central government with the state government sharing the responsibility of providing the required infrastructure and manpower.

While understandably farmers were lacking PC operating skills, the attitude and hence aroud 4,000 people were trained.

However, the project seemed to be on a roll since its launch in September 2007. The portal had an average 8-14 lakh hits per month and around 1,400 farmers having availed the Ask for Advice services.

However, with Internet availability continuing to be a sore issue till the time CSCs are not rolled out fully, Internet based delivery model will not take off. Perhaps, to counter this problem Kisan Call Center was established in September 2008 with a toll free number, whereinfarmers could dial in and get information from subject matter experts on agri-related queries. The call center currently has around 30 SMEs on horticulture, veterinarians etc, says Jain. Since the launch, the call center has handled around 1,20,000 calls. The call center has been integrated with Krishinet to provide information available on portal through KCC. And vice versa data collected at the KCC provides directions to add and update information on portal.

Stuti Das
stutid@cybermedia.co.in

Page(s)   1