The Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar today launched a farmer friendly mobile application in Krishi Bhavan developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to facilitate farmers and traders in searching transport vehicles for primary and secondary transportation for movement of agriculture and horticulture produce. Primary transportation would include movement from farm to mandis, collection centres and warehouses of farmer producer organisations (FPOs). Secondary transportation would include movement from Mandis to intra-state and inter-state mandis, processing units, railway station, warehouses and wholesalers.
Speaking on the occasion the Agriculture Minister said, “Agricultural activities have to go on amidst the lockdown. Concessions have been given to the agriculture sector. While harvesting and sowing is going on, transportation will become easier with the Kisan Rath app as it will help farmers and traders for transporting produce from farm-gate to mandis and mandis to all over the country. At this juncture while the country is passing through the COVID-19 pandemic, ‘Kisan Rath’ App will facilitate farmers, FPOs and cooperatives in the country to have the choice to find a suitable transport facility to transfer their agriculture produce from farm-gate to markets.
According to the ministry, the mobile application would facilitate farmers and traders in identifying right mode of transportation for movement of farm produce ranging from foodgrains such as cereal, coarse cereal, pulses etc; fruits & vegetables; oil seeds, spices, fiber crops, flowers, bamboo, log and minor forest produce, coconuts among others. The app would also facilitate traders in transportation of perishable commodities by reefer vehicles.
Transportation of agri produce is critical and indispensable component of supply chain. The consignors – farmers, FPOs, buyers and traders — will place a requirement for transportation on this app which is disseminated to transport aggregators in the market, who in turn interface with various truckers and fleet owners for obtaining a competitive quote against the requirement and passes back the quote and trucker details to the consignor. Thereafter, the consignor will directly negotiate offline with the trucker and finalize the deal. Once the trip is completed, the user can provide a rating or feedback for the trucker in the app which, over a period of time, becomes feedback mechanism for the transporter to improve their services. This would also help the consignors in the selection process of logistics service providers in future, the minister added.
The mobile app will be made available in 8 languages in Android version initially, for pan-India use.
