Farm department to support farmers through kiosks

The agriculture department of the government of West Bengal would use the network of e-kiosks being set up in the state by the information technology (IT) department to build links between farmers, agricultural experts and regional rural and co-operative banks.

The move was aimed at improving the accessibility of farmers to credit facilities, said Sanjeev Chopra, secretary, department of agriculture, West Bengal, on the sidelines of a seminar organised here.

The project will be taken-up in the Barddhaman district on an experimental basis by the middle of 2008. Based on the response, it will be spread through the 7,000 proposed e-koisks in the state.

The department will also extend its advisory-services to farmers, by giving them accurate information on soil-quality and the suitable seed-variety through the kiosks. According to Chopra, the e-kiosk service in West Bengal would be modelled on the system in place in Andhra Pradesh.

With this in view, West Bengal agriculture minister, Naren De recently visited Andhra Pradesh, he said.

Under the "Esagu" initiative of the Andhra Pradesh government, around 80 to 100 farms were assigned to one government coordinator.

Each coordinator visited each farm under him once in a week and took about five photographs, which were downloaded in computers at e-kiosks and burnt onto a CD. The CD was transferred to IIIT Hyderabad, where the images were uploaded to the main server. Agricultural experts there scanned the photographs and give their written advice.

At the village center, the expert advice was downloaded by the programmer through Internet. Chopra said, against the credit requirement of Rs 15,000 crore in the agricultural sector, only Rs 2,000-3,000 crore was availed by farmers in West Bengal annually from government channels.