In order to facilitate farmers by providing location specific 'Demand-Based Tele Agriculture Advisories', the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology have signed an MoU on June 9, at Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi.

The event was presided over by Dr Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & Director General (ICAR), Shri Sanjay Kumar Singh, Additional Secretary (DARE) & Secretary (ICAR) and Shri Abhishek Singh, Managing Director & CEO, DIC.

Dr A.K.Singh, Deputy Director General (Agricultural Extension), ICAR, Dr Vinay Thakur, Senior Director (Research), DIC, Dr Anil Rai, Assistant Director General (ICT), ICAR, Dr Randhir Singh Poswal, Assistant Director General (Agricultural Extension), ICAR, Dr T S Anurag, Pr. Research Scientist, DIC and Shri AnshulPorwal, Pr. Software Developer, DIC were the other dignitaries present on the occasion.

The purpose of the MoU is to integrate the existing Interactive Information Dissemination System (IIDS) platform of DIC with the proposed KisanSarathi program of ICAR and its implementation through the ICAR network to reach a large number of farmers across the country.

ICAR and DIC have agreed to collaborate to develop and deploy ICT platforms to establish and operate a multi-media, multi-way advisory and communication system for supporting various agricultural activities at the local level.

To begin with, the Interactive Information Dissemination System (IIDS) would be deployed at ICAR which is a push-and pull-based system wherein agriculture-related information can be pulled from the farmers using mobile phones.

IIDS gives an option to farmers to receive individual needs-based information for only those services to which they have subscribed. The experts at the back end will have access to the farmers' database while responding to their queries. In this manner, experts would be able to understand the problems raised by farmers or field problems in a better way (KYF – Know Your Farmer) and expeditiously provide appropriate solutions to the farmer in a personalized manner. Currently, the IIDS platform has been deployed in North-Eastern states, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana which would be extended to all over the country with this MoU with ICAR.

The DIC will be providing the entire technical solution with support for development, hosting and managing the requisite ICT platform. The ICAR will be managing & monitoring the entire operations through their extension services network in the form of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), various domain-specific research Institutes and network of agricultural universities etc., in a phased manner.