‘Digital kisan kiosks’ come up at district headquarters

Tribune News Service

Ambala, September 18

The Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department has developed a digital platform to communicate with farmers, making Haryana the first state in the country to come up with such an initiative.

The touchscreen-based ‘digital kisan kiosks’, powered with a dedicated helpline, directly connect farmers with the kisan call centre, which assist farmers in issues related to the department.

Stating this here today, Ajit Balaji Joshi, Director General, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, said interactive kiosks were being installed at every district collector’s office in the state.

The digital kiosks will help farmers intimate insurance loss to the authorities and verify the authenticity of pesticides and seeds. The kiosks will also provide detailed information of schemes to farmers in simplified animated videos.

He said considering the challenge of Internet connectivity, these kiosks were enabled to work with and without Internet. “They have videos of success stories, district-wise live market rates of grain and commodities and data transfer facility,” he said, while stating that farmers could even try this system on their mobile phones by just scanning the quick response (QR) code mentioned on the kiosks. New technology feature like Chat Bot was also part of these kiosks for providing quick answers to the queries of farmers.

Joshi said the initiative would empower farmers in terms of garnering knowledge, understanding government schemes and also connecting with the department through a hotline, which would result in an increase in the income of farmers.

‘Saksham yuva’ to help in agri experiments 

Chandigarh: The state Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department has decided to deploy ‘saksham yuva’ as additional manpower to assist primary workers associated with crop cutting experiments (CCEs) in the state under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. An official spokesman said the department would give an additional amount of Rs 500 per harvesting experiment to compensate travel and other expenses to the ‘saksham yuva’. He said the amount would be deposited in their bank accounts through direct benefit transfer. He said remuneration would be provided only for those harvesting experiments that have been done through the CCE app. TNS

Farm assistance

• The touchscreen-based ‘digital kisan kiosks’ directly connect farmers with the kisan call centre
• The kiosks will help farmers intimate insurance loss to the authorities and verify the authenticity of pesticides and seeds
• They will also provide detailed information of schemes to farmers in simplified animated videos
• Considering the challenge of Internet connectivity, these kiosks are enabled to work with and without Internet