DINDIGUL: Ahead of the September 30 deadline, the agriculture department has managed to complete Digital Crop Survey (DCC) in just 60% of the 2,47,600 hectares (including 103,000 hectares of horticulture fields) in the district.
Officials cited travel time, limited staff and volunteers as reasons for the low coverage.
Under the project, which commenced in July, agriculture and horticulture officers collect field-level data on crops in order to improve policy-making, and welfare distribution. They move to the fields along localised survey teams and registered volunteers using the Crop Survey (O) App by TNeGA and the Uzhavan App.
A horticulture officer in Dindigul said, "There are just 210 officers including horticulture or agriculture in Dindigul for this extensive fieldwork. A single officer can cover just 10-20 hectares and complete 100 entries per day. But, the total area under cultivation in the district is around 2,47,600 hectares (including 103,000 hectares of horticulture fields).
The task is enormous and both departments have allowed volunteers to help our officers. But they are paying `3 for a single entry. So many people hesitate to volunteer for the work."
TN Farmers association (Dindigul) president A Ramasamy said, "The purpose of the survey is to collect accurate, real-time, field-level data on crops grown by farmers to improve agricultural planning, policy-making, and welfare distribution.
But it is delayed due to sheer size of the district. We believe many surveys are complete in each block, but few lakhs are yet to be completed."
He added, "Many officers who visited the site, explained the functions of the app. They mentioned that the app uses geo-fencing (setting a virtual boundary using GPS) and satellite imagery to locate and verify the exact piece of land. Besides, officers take pictures of the crops, and the app saves the images with exact geographic coordinates to mark the cropped areas. These explanations were simple and we thought it was quick easy coverage, but when it came to visiting sub division in each survey number in one single village, it is tough."
An agriculture department official acknowledged the delay in completion. He said, "We had planned to complete it with the support of volunteers, but just a few turned up. We will seek two or three more weeks time with authorities in ennai. The survey will be complete by the end of October 2026."
