Centre plans to launch 12-digit unique ID for farmers to extend sops

Just like Aadhaar, the Centre has come up with the idea of generating 12-digit unique ID for each farmer which can be used to take benefit of all government schemes meant for farmers without any hiccups.

The idea of generating unique IDs for farmers is part of the Union government’s massive exercise to create a digital database of farmers with an intention of extending all government schemes in future. So far, names of 5.5 crore farmers have been registered from 11 states, which includes Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. Once the figure reaches 8 crore, the unique farmer IDs will be made public.

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The Centre had launched a digital agriculture mission before COVID in 2020. The project was delayed due to the pandemic. Now the mission has been relaunched for the period 2021-2025 and entails use of technologies like artificial intelligence, block chain, remote sensing and GIS, besides drones and robots.

The names of farmers are being derived from the database of government schemes like PM-Kisan, Soil Health Card and PM Fasal Bima Yojana.

Geographical Information System (GIS) will be employed to link land records. This will help farmers get accurate advisories with regards to cropping pattern, seed selection, irrigation schedules, nutrition and pest management among other things.

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“All these efforts are aimed at creating a unified farmer service interface, which will help the Union as well as state governments in better planning of procurement operations,” Vivek Aggarwal, additional Secretary, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, told The Indian Express.

The Union Agriculture Ministry recently signed memorandum of understand (MoUs) with 10 private companies, including CISCO, Ninjacart, Jio Platforms, ITC Star Agribazaar, Esri India, Patanjali etc.