Correct Answer : 2,817 crores
The Union Cabinet Committee chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi approved the Digital Agriculture Mission today (2nd Sep 2024) with an outlay of Rs. 2817 Crore, including the central share of Rs. 1940 Crore.
The Mission is conceived as an umbrella scheme to support digital agriculture initiatives, such as creating Digital Public Infrastructure, implementing the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), and taking up other IT initiatives by the Central Government, State Governments, and Academic and Research Institutions.
In recent years, India's digital revolution has transformed governance and service delivery by creating digital identities, and secured payments and transactions. This has spurred a thriving digital ecosystem in finance, healthcare, education, and retail, positioning India as a leader in citizen-centric digital solutions.
For a similar transformation of the Agriculture Sector, the government announced the building of Digital Public Infrastructure for agriculture in the Union Budget 2023-24. Further, in the Budget 2024-25, the augmentation of the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) initiative for the agricultural sector has also been announced.
The Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for Agriculture aims to provide comprehensive and useful data on farmers comprising of authenticated demographic details, land holdings and crops sown. It will include cultivators & tenant farmers, as per the policy of the State Government.
It would also connect to relevant Digital Public Infrastructure of the State Governments and Ministries of the Government of India to use data of farmers on livestock, fisheries, soil health, other vocations, family details and schemes and benefits availed, leading to innovative farmer-centric digital services in the agriculture sector. Aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047, the DPI for Agriculture forms the core of the Digital Agriculture Mission.
The three DPIs to be built under the Mission are Agristack, Krishi Decision Support System, and Soil Profile Mapping. Besides enabling farmer-centric digital services, these DPIs will make timely and reliable information available for the agriculture sector.
AgriStack is a farmer-centric DPI that will enable efficient, easier, and faster services and scheme delivery to farmers. It is being built in a federated structure as a collaborative project between the various agencies of the Central and State Governments. It consists of three foundational registries or databases in the agriculture sector, i.e., the Farmers’ Registry, Geo-referenced village maps and the Crop Sown Registry, all created and maintained by the State Governments/ Union Territories.
Under AgriStack, farmers will be given a digital identity (Farmer ID) similar to Aadhaar, which will be a trusted ‘Kisan ki Pehchaan’. This ‘Farmer ID’ will be linked dynamically to the State’s land records, livestock ownership, crops sown, demographic details, family details, schemes and benefits availed etc. Crops sown by farmers will be recorded through mobile-based ground surveys i.e. Digital Crop Survey to be conducted in each season.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is being signed between the Centre and State Governments to create and implement the DPI for Agriculture. So far, 19 States have signed MoUs with the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. The basic IT infrastructure for implementing AgriStack has been developed and already tested on a pilot basis, as follows:
* For the creation of Farmer IDs, pilots have been conducted in one district each across six States: Uttar Pradesh (Farrukhabad), Gujarat (Gandhinagar), Maharashtra (Beed), Haryana (Yamuna Nagar), Punjab (Fatehgarh Sahib), and Tamil Nadu (Virudhnagar). It is targeted to create digital identities for 11 crore farmers: Six crore farmers in FY 2024-25, three crore farmers in FY 2025-26, and two crore farmers in FY 2026-27.
* For the development of the Crop Sown Registry, a pilot on the Digital Crop Survey was conducted in 11 States in 2023-24. Further, it is targeted to launch the Digital Crop Survey across the nation within two years, with 400 districts covered in FY 2024-25 and all the districts covered in FY 2025-26.
The Krishi Decision Support System will create a comprehensive geospatial system to unify remote sensing-based information on Crops, Soil, Weather, water resources, etc..
Source :
PIB
