According to sources by the middle of next year, the modi government would have direct connectivity with over 11.5 crore farmers and their families across india, making it a communication exercise hitherto unprecedented in scale. If all goes well, the massive data bank on the farmers would be ready for release by june 2020.
Accordingly a top level committee, headed by Union Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agarwal, is working in tandem with the Information and technology Ministry and its National e-governance Division (NEGD) wing, to meet the deadline of the mega data project, set by the Prime Minister's Office. Meanwhile with the help of this database and the use of technology, life of the small and marginal farmers of the country would witness a sea change ranging from soil testing to flood alerts, and from satellite imagery to land revenue records.
A senior official of the Union Agriculture and Farmers Affairs Ministry told adding that "besides the Agriculture Secretary, former IT Secretary J. Satyanarayana, the man behind implementation of Aadhaar card scheme, and several IT experts, are looking after the database project". Moreover sources said that all the data is cross checked by the Public Fund Management System (PFMS) to ensure that money credited to a farmer's bank account, reaches the right place. As of now, the government has released Rs 33,000 crore to the poor farmers since PM-KISAN (Kisan Samman Nidhi) was launched in december last year.
