With an objective of making the farmers more techsavvy andto bring in technology in farming sector, Minister for IT/BT, S. R. Patil last year had taken the initiative to distribute agriinformation enabled tablets.
This year too, Mr. Patil who is also the incharge minister of Bagalkot district wishes to continue the scheme by deciding to distribute the tabletPC to one thousand farmers of Vijayapura and Bagalkot districts.
It may be noted that last year, he had given some ten tabletPC to the farmers as pilot project in order to make them aware of the importance of technology in farming sector.
The initiative was taken through Bapuji Rural Development Organisation, of which, the Minister is president in collaboration with American-based information technology company, Virtuex IT Solutions.
The net-enabled gadget has inbuilt application called eKisan which contains extensive information about various aspects of farming that include usage of fertilizers, soil testing, weather forecast, pest control, list of government schemes and other vital information needed by the farmers.
The application made in Kannada language for the easy access as most of the farmers are not good at English.
According to sources, the decision has been taken to identify some thousand progressive farmers of the twindistricts with over 1,000 villages.
A call centre has also been set up in Bagalkot city for offering information and solving the problems of the farmers over the phone. The farmers can call from the same Tablet which also acts as normal mobile phone for contacting.
The experts of both agriculture and horticulture help solving the problems of the farmers.
Though the price of the tables is believed to be around Rs. 12,000, however the organisers are giving it free to selected farmers.
“The idea behind the initiative is to make sure that the technology reaches every household in the State, especially the farmers who have remained largely away from this facility which could bring about radical change in the farming sector”, said, Mr. Patil.
