Centre plans to create unique IDs, database for farmers
The central government is reportedly planning to create unique IDs and a database for farmers to help them "seamlessly" avail all farm-related services under various government schemes. The move aims to create a unified farmer service interface and help digitize the government's agricultural services delivery. The plan was reportedly discussed during the Chief Ministers' Conference earlier this month. Here are more details.
What does the government want to achieve through this plan?
Speaking to The Indian Express, Vivek Aggarwal, Additional Secretary, Agriculture, and Farmers' Welfare, said that the unique IDs will help farmers to "seamlessly avail various government schemes and credit facilities." The database that would be created by collating data from various schemes will help "the Centre and state governments in better planning of procurement operations," Aggarwal further said.
How is the government creating the database?
Aggarwal said the database is to be created from existing schemes such as PM-KISAN, Soil Health Card, and the PM Fasal Bima Yojana. "All farmer data in central schemes will be linked to land record details available with state governments. Aadhaar will be used as a deduplication mechanism," he said. Land parcels will also be linked through Geographical Information System (GIS) data, he added.
What data will this database entail?
The database will include data on the number of occupational farmers who avail of subsidies, how much land they own, what they grow, and which agro-climatic zones they fall in. The data points "will be triangulated by a software" to give an "illuminating" picture of the agriculture economy, an official said. This real-time data will solve problems of a lack of accurate farm-economy data.
Agriculture Ministry signed MoU with 10 companies for digital mission
Meanwhile, the Agriculture Ministry has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 10 private companies to enhance its digital mission. These companies include CISCO, Ninjacart, Jio Platforms, ITC and NCDEX e-Markets Ltd (NeML), Microsoft, Star Agribazaar, Esri India Technologies, Patanjali, and Amazon.
Government has prepared database for 11 states
Aggarwal, who heads the Ministry's Digital Agriculture Division, said the government has already prepared a farmers' database for 11 states, including Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh. He said the remaining states—including Telangana, Kerala, and Punjab—will also be covered soon. "We have started internally generating unique farmer IDs...once we are ready with the database of eight crore farmers...we will launch this."
