Technical Solution for Farmers within the COVID-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 Pandemic: Due to the Corona (COVID -19) pandemic, the entire world has suffered to a very large extent. Every aspect of the country has affected due to this outbreak, whether it is government or private sector everyone has felt the loss. To curb the transmission of Corona (COVID-19), Governments has imposed some strict rules and regulation which helped them to an extent.

Farmers who are the most important person in our life also faced the consequences of this pandemic. They are facing a lot of difficulties to provide their products in the markets and firms.

As the whole country is under lockdown and everything has got shut to control the outbreak, farmers and agriculture communities were facing issues to transport all their necessary products which are very essentials for the common people. They were finding difficulties to book trucks and tractors for transportation, which was a big problem for all of them. If they do not get the proper solution to this problem then it will be a huge loss of the produces and common people will have to face the shortage of grains.

The Government and Agriculture Ministry has launched a new mobile app solution for the farmers in India amid the entire nation lockdown which is very easy to use and with the help of this app farmer and agriculture community can solve their transport problem.It will facilitate Indian farmers and traders to transport their produced products throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

About the App: “Kisan Rath” - Covid-19 Pandemic

Kisan Rath is an Android mobile app solution introduced by the Indian Government during the Corona Virus Pandemic to support the farmer and traders. This mobile app will enable farmers and traders to easily move produced goods in the country's firms and markets.

Farmers are having challenges to book trucks and tractors for transporting their produce so this mobile app will help them bring their commodities to mandis and other market yards.

Kisan Rath mobile app will bring together 5 lakh trucks and 20,000 tractors on the mobile platforms through which the farm produces will be transported to markets. The main advantage that these transports will offer to the farmer, transport services with refrigerators.

This mobile solution will offer several types of transport services which include primary transportation and secondary transportation.

The primary transportation will support traders or farmers to transport the commodities within the area from their farm to the near mandis, warehouses, or the pick-up centers of farmer producer organizations.

Similarly, secondary transportation will enable farmers to transport commodities from the local mandis to intra-and inter-State mandis, railway stations, processing units, and wholesalers.

For the easy and smooth use of the app by all over the state's farmers, the mobile app has developed in eight languages which are English, Hindi, Gujrati, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu.

How does it work?

The Kisan Rath app has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and is available at play store which can easily be downloaded and installed by all the farmers and traders. After the installation of the app, Farmers, FPOs, or traders will place a requirement based on their product for transportation which will be distributed to transport aggregators in the market, who interconnect with truckers and other registered transporters for gaining a competitive quote.

After obtaining the quote by truckers it will be conveyed back to the farmer. Then the farmer will directly negotiate with the trucker or other transporter and will finalize the deal.

The farmers will also have the option to share their feedback and give ratings to the truckers on the app. The given rating will help the traders or farmers in the selection process of logistics service providers in the future.

This initiative will ensure an uninterrupted supply of commodities between farmers, FPOs, APMC, mandis, intra-state and inter-state buyers. It will be the best approach to reduce the wastage of produced goods and assist in better pricing of spoilable commodities.

An all India Agri transport call center has also been initiated to aid the interstate shipment of perishables throughout the lockdown.

Like Kisan Rath, there are some other mobile apps that have been developed for helping, supporting, and protecting the farmers produced goods in several ways.