Two Mobile Apps Launched for Farmers

Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister, Sh Radha Mohan Singh launched two mobile apps for the farmers here today. Mobile app ”Crop Insurance” will help the farmers not only to find out complete details about insurance cover available in their area but also to calculate the insurance premium for notified crops, coverage amount and loan amount in case of a loaned farmer. Mobile apps “AgriMarket Mobile” can be used by the farmers to get the market prices of crops in the mandi within 50 km radius of the device and other mandis in the country.

Releasing the apps Sh Radha Mohan Singh said that Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare is organising “Kishan Jai Vigyan Week”to celebrate birth anniversary of Shri. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Ch. Charan Singh, from 25^th December. Launching of mobile apps is the part of the week long celebrations. He said it has been constant endeavour of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare to make available all relevant and timely information to the farmers and other stake holders so as to create a conducive environment for raising farm productivity and income to global levels. It is in this direction that an ambitious project known as National e-Governance Plan in agriculture (NeGP-A) has been launched. Besides providing hardware up to the block levels offices in all States/UTs, the project also includes development of 12 clusters of services (with over 65 discrete websites/applications).

The Minister said that out of these 36 applications and web portals have already been rolled out and are in use by different departments and other stakeholders across Centre and States/UTs. Some of these are mKisan, Farmers Portal, Insurance Portal, Nowcast, Plant Quarantine Information Systems, revamped Agmarknet and Kisan Knowledge Management System etc. The project also includes making these services available through multiple delivery channels like web based, through Touch Screen Kiosks, SMS, USSD and mobiles. Internet penetration in rural India is still abysmally low, however number of mobiles with the farmers and in hinterlands is rising at a very fast pace.He said that Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has therefore decided to make all its existing and future services available through mobile platforms. mKisan portal of the ministry has been a resounding success in this regard. Today we have approximately 2 crore farmers registered with us for receiving SMS advisories which are being sent by officers and scientists across all States/UTs, ICAR, IMD and Agriculture Universities.

The Minister also said that the Government will launch new crop insurance scheme next month which would aim speedy disposal of claims with very less premiums.

Features of the mobile apps launched today are:-

Crop Insurance Mobile app

Government of India spends huge amounts in extending crop insurance to the farmers so as to provide them relief in case of unforeseen eventualities. Crop insurance is extended by both public and private insurance companies. States/UTs nominate insurance companies to extend insurance cover for different crops in districts/blocks. There is also a specific period during which farmers can avail this facility. Due to administrative and technical reasons much of this information is not able to reach to the farmers well in time to take advantage of these schemes. This Crop Insurance mobile app can be used to find out complete details about cover available but also to calculate the Insurance Premium for notified crops based on area, coverage amount and loan amount in case of a loanee farmer. It can also be used to get details of normal sum insured, extended sum insured, premium details and subsidy information of any notified crop in any notified area.

AgriMarket Mobile App

Farmers sometimes have to suffer losses due to distress sales in absence of correct market information. They can take an informed decision based on information about the ongoing prices in markets around them as to which market they should take their produce for selling. This App has been developed with an aim to keep them abreast with crop prices around them. AgriMarket Mobile App can be used to get the market price of crops in the markets within 50 km of the device’s location. This app automatically captures the location of person using mobile GPS and fetches the market prices of crops in those markets which fall within the range of 50 km. There is another option to get price of any market and any crop in case person does not want to use GPS location.The prevailing prices are fetched from the Agmarknet portal.

Both these apps have been developed in house by IT Division of the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare and can be downloaded from Google Store or mKisan portal (http://mkisan.gov.in/Default.aspx). There is a provision that if any State desire to convert these mobile applications in their local language, they can easily do so by simply providing the names of few keywords in their language. Then this application will be prepared in that language very easily and uploaded on the play store.