In Punjab, Soil Health Cards on DigiLocker soon
Vijay C Roy
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 3
Farmers in Punjab will soon be able to access their soil health cards along with other documents such as driver’s licence and vehicle registration certificates (RCs) on their mobile phone by logging on to their DigiLocker accounts. The state government is in the process of initiating the project. The system will help the farmers access their documents anytime, anywhere and share it online.
Launched in July 2015, DigiLocker serves as a platform to enable citizens to securely store and share their documents with service providers electronically after giving due permission. The locker makes it easier to validate the authenticity of documents as they are issued directly by the registered issuers.
“To facilitate the farming community, we are contemplating on the modalities and will soon initiate the process for putting the soil health cards on DigiLocker,” said Sutantar Kumar Airi, Director, Agriculture, Punjab. The health cards issued by the state government are already online, so it will not take much time in integrating it with DigiLocker, he said.
The Punjab government has issued around 17 lakh soil health cards to farmers and also prepared soil health maps at local level. The Soil Health Card scheme, started by the Centre in February, 2015, aims at conducting chemical analysis of farm land and issue soil health cards every three years to all farmers across the country. This provides vital data with regard to nutrient deficiencies in the soil and help farmers for the judicious use of fertilisers.
According to estimates, over 70% of the state’s population use internet on smartphone. It is expected that a large section of farmers will be benefitted by this move. The state is ranked second in terms of Internet subscribers on mobile after Delhi.
Targeted at the idea of paperless governance, DigiLocker eliminates the use of physical documents. The citizens, who sign up for a DigiLocker account, get a dedicated cloud storage space that is linked to their Aadhaar (UIDAI) number.
Organisations that are registered with DigiLocker can push electronic copies of documents and certificates (e.g. driver’s licence, Voter ID, school certificates) directly into citizens’ lockers. Citizens can also upload scanned copies of their legacy documents in their accounts. These legacy documents can be electronically signed using the e-Sign facility.
At a recently held workshop on ‘Governance Reforms and Higher Education’, Principal Secretary Seema Jain said the state governance reforms department had started the process of integrating DigiLocker with e-Sewa and m-Sewa applications which are being used to deliver key services to citizens through different modes, including Sewa Kendras.
She said caste certificates, residence certificate and rural area certificate are available on respective DigiLocker accounts of citizens which are issued via Sewa Kendras. Punjab State e-Governance Society and Punjab School Education Board have already registered as issuer departments on the Digilocker.
DigiLocker benefits
- Can be accessed anytime, anywhere on mobile
- Reduces government’s overhead expenses
- Easy to validate the authenticity
