Union Ministry of Agriculture and Microsoft India on April 13, 2021 inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a pilot project in 100 villages of 6 states.
- Microsoft has come forward to start a pilot project in selected 100 villages in 10 districts of 6 states (Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh) to develop farmer interface for smart and well-organized agriculture, including post-harvest management and distribution.
- For this project, Microsoft has joined in with its local partner, Crop Data. In this regard, a MoU and tripartite agreement have been exchanged in the presence of Cabinet Minister.
- The project is for one year and both sides inking the MoU will bear the cost on their own. This project will carry out various tasks for the betterment of farmers in the selected 100 villages, which will enhance their income. This project will reduce the input costs for farmers and make farming easy.
- The government aims to increase the income of farmers by removing the bottleneck of inconsistent information.
- A number of new initiatives have been launched to achieve this goal. A major initiative, in this regard, is the creation of Agri-Funds based on the National Farmers Database. The government is preparing a farmer database by linking the land records of farmers across the country. The data related to PM Kisan, Soil Health Card and Pradhan Mantri Crop Insurance Scheme, available with the government, have been integrated and the process of inclusion of other data is going on. Union Agriculture Minister Shri Tomar has also issued directives for Geo tagging of all the assets that will be created by the virtue of all schemes of the Ministry of Agriculture.
(PIB)
