Mumbai: In an effort to plug leakages in subsidies provided to farmers, the Maharashtra government aims to register all farmers under Agri Stack, which will provide the farmer with a digital ID with a unique number. This will help the government to provide the subsidy to the actual and intended beneficiaries in a timely manner. The state’s agriculture department has set a deadline to provide digital IDs to 1.19 crore farmers in the next 100 days. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has directed the agriculture department to speed up the process of providing digital IDs to farmers.
Agri Stack is an initiative of the Government of India. It aims to help farmers by providing cheap credit, high-quality agricultural inputs, localized and specific advice, which will help improve the country’s agricultural sector and enable better results.
The Chief Minister chaired a meeting with senior officials including State Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik and Agriculture Department Secretary Jayashree Bhoj regarding the government’s 100-day plan and major schemes.
A senior official present at this meeting told this newspaper that there are 1.19 crore farmers including 97 lakh PM farmer beneficiaries across the state. “The Chief Minister has directed the department to take the help of agricultural assistants, gram sevaks and talathi (village accountants) to speed up the process of issuing digital IDs to farmers. He has also requested the Finance Department to positively consider the wage demands raised by them for this work,’ said a senior official.
In the meeting, Fadnavis instructed the Agriculture Department to coordinate with the Information Technology Department and the Settlement Commissioner to complete the work within the specified period.
An official of the agriculture department said that they are going to organize a camp to enroll farmers under the agriculture stack. We have instructed all district collectors to hold camps for two to three days in villages with internet connection. A farmer’s name and his farm land will be linked with his Aadhaar number at the camp,” the official said.
The official said that the digital ID will have a unique number along with the farmer’s name. With this unique number, a digital account will be created for the farmer, which will have a record of his land ownership, georeference of the land and crop survey report. “After keeping all the records of the farmers, we will know how much fertilizer and seeds the farmers need. This will help us plug the leaks in the system. At present, we don’t know how much fertilizer and seeds are provided to a farmer,” the official added.
According to officials, the Agriculture Stack initiative will make it easier for the government to plan and implement various agriculture-related schemes. The government has already enrolled farmers from 362 villages in the pilot project.