eGov-Aug-2010-[59-62]-eINDIA 2010 Awards-Public Sector

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PUBLIC SECTOR

SMART Krishi IMPLEMENTING AGENCY Orissa e-Governance Services OBJECTIVES  Provides facility to farmers at his door step to do the soil testing  Develop a knowledge base on the basis of soil profiling of each and every village for better farming management practices  Help the farmers to get the best price for his farming produce

CITIZEN CHOICE #2

OUTCOME  KSC s have succeeded in delivering the location specific, need based advisory and diagnostic services to the farmers  The project is providing instant access to the best management practices of the selected crops relevant to locality, daily market

AWARDS

CITIZEN

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CHOICE #1

roject Smart Krishi is intended for e-Delivery of G2C services at Panchayat level to the common man through Common Service Center (CSC) established in each Garm Panchayat under NeGP mandate. The project was implemented in Orissa to improve delivery of agriculture related services and information to the farmers. A baseline study was conducted when the project was conceptualised and it was found the farmers are not aware of the importance of soil profile for pursing different crops. Farmers’ awareness levels on different government scheme, best practices were very poor and negligible. There was no avenue for farmers to know the availability and cost of various agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilisers which the farmer is indenting to purchase. Very few farmers knew the current market price of agricultural products. Farmers were also unaware of the weather forecasting, and were not able to plan for their activity. During implementation it was viewed that the connectivity in the CSCs situated in remote area were very poor. Keeping in view, the light weight web pages has been designed by using web 2.0 technology so that the application runs with a minimal bandwidth. Once the farmers got the essential agricultural services at the GP/CSC level, their satisfactory and acceptance of the system increased tremendously, which created a demand from farmers side.

OUTCOME  Substantial number of soil samples have been tested and reported  Farmers get the soil report within 5 days at their door step  Weather report and advisory notes in local language and in English are passed on to the farmers

KNOWLEDGE Sharing Centers

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n the present era of knowledge revolution there is a need to equip farmers with information on climate scenario and market. Knowledge resource management in rain-fed agriculture area integrates information, communication, dissemination, utilisation for sustainable development leading to improved agricultural productivity. Use of ICT’s as an extension tool in knowledge management of the project exhibited multifaceted dimensions and multifarious roles for technology access. ICT’s component is included in the CRIDA’s NAIP project on sustainable rural livelihoods through enhanced farming systems productivity and efficient support systems in rainfed areas which is an action research pilot project in selected village clusters of the 8 backward districts of Andhra Pradesh involving a consortium of institutions from public, private and NGO sectors. I-Kisan, is a partner for ICT’s promotion, designing and establishing necessary infrastructure at cluster level. Realising the importance of ICT’s at this juncture, efforts are made in the project to open the avenues for technology access and utilisation by the rural clientele. The project made an attempt in using all these ICT tools for knowledge resources management in agriculture. User-friendly information is made available through touch screen kiosks (TSK). Queries addressal system through interactive voice response system (IVRS), awareness creation of the technologies through display announcement package (DAP), Internet, are the essential services of the KSC.

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture OBJECTIVES  Envisages the access to value added information services on latest tools and technologies  Facilitates the sharing of data, information and the collective knowledge gleaned from research, experiences and interaction

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AWARDS

CITIZEN CHOICE #3

OUTCOME  The software available is comparable to any international software but is very affordable  The software has data analysis capability hence the veterinarian can play with data and ‘learn’ to finetune management, feeding and breeding strategies

PUBLIC SECTOR

RURAL Veterinary & Extension Services

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nder the project, software applications for commercial dairy farms, dairy cooperatives or private multi-centric milk processing companies, bovine frozen semen banks and livestock markets were developed and validated. The software and the service delivery model was validated at 10 village centers (around 5000 animals) with active partnership of Chitale Dairy, at Bhiladi, district Sangli (Maharashtra). The RFID- handheld based system was deployed and tested in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu to implement fraud-free high credibility cattle insurance scheme. At Chitle Dairy, Bhilvadi, RFID enabled data recording system is tied around 10,000 cows and buffaloes. With this system the credibility of the data is high as recording is possible only when the service provider visits the farm and reads the RFID. These ICT are tools simple; the animals are first unique-identified by applying plastic or RFID bilateral ear-tag and details are registered in the serverbased ‘Herdman’ software. The village herd data is analysed to send daily ‘action’ and ‘alarm’ lists to the (para)-veterinarians and farmers on their cell- phones for undertaking management decisions. The data sharing is done through SMS / voice phone / or GPRS-based modules. The target is scalable system for networking village herd data to create state-level grid. To provide immediate benefit of data recording the network has been interfaced with web-livestock platform so that the farmers can get higher price for the animals with records.

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY Bombay Veterinary College OBJECTIVES  Develop software networking applications to collect and manage large volume of records from farms and dairy cooperatives  Evolve novel service delivery systems to ensure that the collected data is used to improve health and productivity

FARMER-Extension-Agricultural Research Education

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY Project Implementation Unit, National Agricultural Innovation Project OBJECTIVES  Provide agricultural information content for incorporation into the knowledge organisation systems  Collaborate in developing information structure for semantic / ontological search engines

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he project was started to bridge the gap between technology developed by the scientists and that used by the farmers. The existing extension systems is one to one from extension personnel’s to farmers. However, due to shortage of extension personnel in the state departments of agriculture and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), the agricultural technology developed under National Agricultural Research System (NARS) and State Agriculture Universities (SAUs) is not reaching the farming community. Therefore there is need to use the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to transfer agricultural technology quickly to the farmers. This also facilitates in brining the farmer and scientists along with the subject matter specialists together in sharing the knowledge which was not possible in traditional extension service. Project is innovative in developing Knowledge Model for selected crops (9 crops-Paddy, Pigeonpea, Chickpea, Sugarcane, Wheat, Litchi, Groundnut, Sorghum, vegetable pea) which is first of its kind in the world. It provides semantic/ontological search engine (tagging related) for retrieving agricultural information from the portal. It has developed region specific multimedia content (text, images, graphics, audio, video) on crops in bilingual language (Kannada and English).

JURY AWARD

OUTCOME  1200 total fertiliser recommendations were given using online fertiliser recommendation systems  Region specific bilingual

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PRIVATE PUBLIC SECTOR

JURY AWARD

CITIZEN CHOICE #1

OUTCOME  Farmers could get their queries answered with the help of experts from Agriculture University  mKRISHI was effective in disseminating IPM ( Integrated Pest Management) technology to farmers

AWARDS

mKRISHI

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Krishi, an innovative platform developed by TCS is based on sensor and mobile phone technology to offer personalised and integrated services to farmers. It allows farmers to send queries in their local languages through a mobile phone and provide personalised responses with advice or relevant information in these languages. It also helps literacy challenged farmers by allowing them to use the service by means of voice SMS. TCS’s mKRISHI platform uses multiple technologies and has effectively demonstrated probably the first time, the use of soil, crop and weather sensor technology to deliver personalised advice. The platform also brings farmer’s stakeholders together, thus enabling integrated services. TCS is partnering with stakeholders such as agri input companies, poultry and dairy companies, agriculture universities, NGOs, rural banks and bringing them together on the mKRISHI platform, enabling farmers to meet his requirements in an integrated fashion. Since the platform is capable of providing location specific and time specific information on demand of agri inputs and supply of certain produce,the supply chain in agriculture sector would improve significantly. To develop mKRISHI platform several technologies have been develop and integrated.

For those with limited literacy, IVR technology is developed on the handset and also provided voice features in the software to transport voice messages between the farmer and the expert.

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY Tata Consultancy Services OBJECTIVES  Give personalised advice, anytime anywhere, on a handset of the farmer in local language  Bridge a gap between the farmer and the expert and other stakeholders  Improve yield, reduce cost, improve efficiency and get better prices for the crop as a result of personalised advice

SOIL Nutrient Management Tool

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY BoP Chair Manipal OBJECTIVES  Generating the recommendations for the farmers about the amount of fertiliser to be added to grow the particular crop  Storing and organising the details about farmers, and the crops grown and the recommendation given to them  Support of multilingual language

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CITIZEN CHOICE #2

oil Nutrient Management Tool (SNMT) is a modernised software tool that helps the soil scientists to analyse the soil samples and regenerate the recommendations about the quantity of fertilisers to be added to grow a particular crop instantly. These recommendations can be used by the farmer to get the better yield with the sensible use of fertilisers. The SNMT is built in a unique way. It is not confined to generate fertiliser recommendations to the any specific crops. Its gives the flexibility to the soil scientist to analyse the soil sample and get recommendations to cultivate any crop. Normally, soil scientists when have to give a report on the use of fertilisers to grow a particular crop follow a set a procedures. In this, the tool recommends amount of fertilisers required to get better yield.

The recommendations given are with respect to the crop which the farmer wishes to cultivate. As a prerequisite the scientist has to store the details of the crops for which recommendations have to be given. This mainly helps agricultural scientists to concentrate on their actual work rather then generating report of soil condition. It also helps keep a track of soil conditions. Can be easily accessed from any where through Internet and can be read in any local language.

OUTCOME  A unique tool as scientists will be able to give recommendations about use of fertilisers for any crop  Multi-language support is also a valued feature

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AWARDS

CITIZEN CHOICE #3

NOVAGOVIYA e-Agriculture Project

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OUTCOME  Online content opened e- learning to rural farmers helping them to use Telecentres to improve their knowledge in modern agriculture  Improve their agriculture best practices that help sustaining the environment

PRIVATE SECTOR

PUBLIC SECTOR

avaGoviya” means the new farmer, is a sustainable and modern agriculture knowledge development initiative aimed at developing rural farming communities transforming rural Telecentres to Modern Agriculture Digital Knowledge centers. The target groups are Telecentre managers, rural farmers and agriculture micro business entrepreneurs. The project covers whole Sri Lanka through 650 Telecentres Island wide. Navagoviya Project is multi stakeholder partnership, initiated

by CIC Agri businesses, in 2008 with the partnership assistance of ICTA e-SDI funding. The content was created by Professors in University of Peradeniya and Technical implementation was done by e fusion private ltd. The project focus was to provide modern knowledge in sustainable agriculture to farmer education at Telecenters. The 600 inter connected Nenasala Tele Center Network attracting rural communities is great potential as a Modern Agriculture Knowledge center. The content was developed in electronic form and integrated into an e learning system by adding photos, animations, videos by developers and hosted on www.navagoviya.org On completion, Telecentre operators were selected from Telecentres and given a residential training on e-Agriculture by professionals using the content and navagoviya.org portal and seminars for rural farming communities were conducted at Telecentre communities to create awareness on e learning of modern agriculture.

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY CIC Agribusinesses, Colombo OBJECTIVES  Create an online digital knowledge base in local languages  Re-train farmers on sustainable and modern agriculture helping to improve rural agriculture, farmer’s economy  Help sustain impact on environment.

CALL FOR ENTRIES

India eGOV 2.0 AWARDS | 2010

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INNOVATIONS IN USAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR GOVERNANCE & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT AND PROGRAMMES BY GOVERNMENT & PRIVATE SECTOR INITIATIVES BY CITIZENS, CITIZEN GROUPS, NGOS & POLITICAL PARTIES

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egov / www.egovonline.net / august 2010

LAST DATE FOR SENDING ENTRY SEPTEMBER 15, 2010