TN govt pushing forward with Agristack Project
CHENNAI: TN government is expediting the process to implement the Agristack Project, which would help farmers access services digitally and increase their returns. Besides, this project would ensure the provision of a unique ID to all farmers across the country and one common document for all farmer-related schemes across State departments to avail of immediate release of relief benefits through direct benefit transfer (DBT), in case of disaster.
The Union government has urged state governments to complete preparing farmers’ database with dynamic linking of land records, geo-referencing of village maps and GIS-based real-time crop survey by March 31, 2023.
The other benefits of the Agristack Project include delivery of individual land parcel/crop-wise customised agriculture advisory, monitoring of soil health and crop health, verification of crop and coverage under the crop insurance scheme, digital verification of all documents submitted, providing an agro warning system to farmers, speedy disbursal of MSP and verification of benefits under PM KISAN.
Besides, the Agristack Project is aimed at enabling farmers to make informed decisions on what crops to grow and when and how to maximise yield. TN government has formed a steering committee and an implementation committee for overseeing and implementing the project. The steering committee headed by Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu reviewed the progress made in collecting the data so far.
Sources said the raw data of around 1.36 crore farmers collected under various agriculture schemes have been shared with Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGa) for cleansing and to arrive at a unified farmers’ database. To date, the TNeGA has cleansed the data and prepared a unified database of 59.10 lakh farmers with their Aadhaar numbers. This database would be called Grower Online Registration of Agricultural Input System (GRAINS).
The GRAINS comprises names of the farmers, their fathers, districts, taluks, and villages; and their Aadhaar, mobile number, survey number, subdivision number and bank details. The government is planning to collect the remaining data by December. Official sources said it has been decided to geo-reference all survey numbers in 16,700 villages across TN before March 2023. In the first phase, 982 villages have been geo-referenced in Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Perambalur and Ariyalur.
The revenue department is implementing the e-Adangal system by capturing the details of land ownership, crop, season, sowing date, expected date of harvest, etc. For this fasli year, around 30 lakh pieces of data has been collected so far.