On June 9, 2021, Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi. The MoU aims to help farmers by providing location specific ‘Demand Based Tele Agriculture Advisories’.
- Objective – To Integrate existing Interactive Information Dissemination System (IIDS) platform of DIC with the proposed KisanSarathi program of ICAR and its implementation through ICAR network to reach a large number of farmers across India.
- The ceremony was presided over by Dr.Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary of Department of Agricultural Research & Education (DARE) & Director General of ICAR; Sanjay Kumar Singh, Additional Secretary (DARE) & Secretary (ICAR) and Abhishek Singh, Managing Director & CEO, DIC.
Key Points
i.The two entities will collaborate to develop and deploy ICT (Information & Communication Technology) platform to establish and operate a multi-media and multi-way advisory and communication system for supporting agricultural activities at local level. DIC will provide technical solutions for development, hosting and managing of the ICT platform.
ii.To begin with, Interactive Information Dissemination System (IIDS) will be deployed at ICAR. IIDS is a push-and-pull-based system using which farmers can access data and experts can access farmer’s data.
- At present, the IIDS platform has been deployed in North Eastern States, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Through this MoU, it will be extended all over India with the help of ICAR.
iii.ICAR will manage & monitor the entire operations through their extension services network in the form of Krishi VIgyan Kendras (KVKs), various domain specific research Institutes and network of agricultural universities in a phased manner.
Recent Related News:
On August 26, 2020, Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare virtually launched the integration of SBI’s YONO Krishi platform with government’s online seed portal Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) and Indian Institute of Horticulture Research (IIHR).
About Digital India Corporation (DIC)
DIC is a not for profit Company set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY under Section 8 of Companies Act 2013. Initially, it was known as ‘Media Lab Asia’. It was renamed as ‘Digital India Corporation’ in 2017.
MD & CEO – Abhishek Singh
Headquarters – New Delhi
About Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
Director General – Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra
Headquarters – New Delhi
Founded in – 1929
