Correct Answer : New Delhi
Earlier this month (Mar 2024), Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda inaugurated a Krishi Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) set up at Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi, a big-screen dashboard of all digital innovations in the sector. Officials described the ICCC as a “significant leap forward” in leveraging technology for the advancement of agricultural practices.
What is the Krishi ICCC?
* The ICCC is a tech-based solution involving multiple IT applications and platforms, which is designed to help in making informed decisions. The centre is housed in the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, which is responsible for legislation, policy formation, and implementation of initiatives in the agriculture sector.
* The ICCC uses state of the art technologies such as artificial intelligence, remote sensing, and
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to collect and process large amounts of granular data — on temperatures, rainfall, wind speed, crop yields and production estimations — and presents it in graphical format.
What do you get as the visual output?
* On eight large, 55-inch LED screens installed at the
ICCC, you can see information on crop yields, production, drought situation, cropping patterns (geographic region-wise and year-wise) in map, timeline, and drill-down views.
* You can also see the relevant trends (periodic and non-periodic), outliers, and
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and receive insights, alerts, and feedback on agriculture schemes, programmes, projects, and initiatives.
* The ICCC uses platforms including the Krishi Decision Support System (DSS) to collect micro-level data, process it, and present the macro picture.
* The ICCC has a contact centre and a helpdesk facility, with the operator’s handset capable of being converted into a call centre. If needed, farmer beneficiaries can interact directly with officials or the Minister through video conferencing facilities.
What is the objective of the ICCC?
* The ICCC will enable comprehensive monitoring of the farm sector by making available at one place geospatial information received from multiple sources, including remote sensing; plot-level data received through soil survey; weather data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD); sowing data from Digital Crop Survey; farmer- and farm-related data from Krishi MApper, an application for geo-fencing and geo-tagging of land; market intelligence information from the Unified Portal for Agricultural Statistics (UPAg); and yield estimation data from the General Crop Estimation Survey (GCES).
* The integrated visualisation of the data will enable quick and efficient decision-making by the The ICCC ecosystem can be linked with the PM-Kisan chatbot going forward.