National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGPA)

In news: National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGPA) has been extended up to 31.03.2021

Background

With the approval of NMAET all the IT Schemes of DAC have been subsumed with the Mission. The Mission Mode Project, National EGovernance Plan in Agriculture (NeGP-A) introduced during last phase of the 11th Plan, to achieve rapid development of agriculture in India through the use of ICT, has been continued during 12th Plan as a part of Sub Mission on Agricultural Extension (SMAE) under National Mission on Agricultural Extension & Technology (NMAET).

About NeGPA

Launch: It was launched in 2010-11 in 7 pilot States. In 2014-15, the scheme was further extended for all the remaining States and 2 UTs

Aim: It aims to achieve rapid development in India through use of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) for timely access to agriculture related information to the farmers

The key objectives of the Project include(as proposed in 12th plan):

Bringing farmer centricity & service orientation to the programs
Enhancing reach & impact of extension services
Improving access of farmers to information & services throughout cropcycle
Building upon, enhancing & integrating the existing ICT initiatives of Centre, and States
Enhancing efficiency & effectiveness of programs through process redesign
More effective management of schemes of Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare
Promoting a common framework across states

Phase II of NeGPA

Under Phase-II of the scheme, funds were released to States for carrying out the activities viz. site preparation of offices for installation of hardware and establishment of computer training labs, procurement, installation and accounting of hardware/system software.

In order to infuse modern information technologies in the farm sector, the NeGPA guidelines were amended in 2020-21 and funds were released for sanctioning projects for customization / shifting of web & mobile applications already developed by the States, to the platform to be developed using digital/emerging technologies

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)

NeGP takes a holistic view of e-Governance initiatives across the country, integrating them into a collective vision, a shared cause.

National e-Governance Plan has been launched with the aim of improving delivery of Government services to citizens and businesses, is guided by the following vision:

“Make all Public Services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man.”

Committee on Doubling Farmers’ Income (DFI)

Realizing the significance of new digital & emerging technologies, the Committee on Doubling Farmers’ Income (DFI) has recommended further expanding and augmenting of the digital agriculture initiatives of Government of India. The report focused on modern management of agriculture viz. Remote Sensing; Geographical Information System; Data Analytics and Cloud Computing; Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning; Internet of Things; Robotics, Drones & Sensors and Block-chain.

Other initiatives in this direction

Unified Farmer Service Platform (UFSP):

UFSP is a combination of Core Infrastructure, Data, Applications and Tools that enable seamless interoperability of various public and private IT systems in the agriculture ecosystem across the country. UFSP is envisaged to play the following role:

Act as a central agency in the agri ecosystem (like UPI in the e Payments)
Enables Registration of the Service Providers, public and private
Enables Registration of the Farmer Services G2F, G2B, B2F and B2B
Enforces various rules and validations required during the service delivery process
Acts as a Repository of all the applicable standards, API’s and formats
It shall also act as a medium of data exchange amongst various schemes and services to enable comprehensive delivery of services to the farmer.

Farmers Database:

For better planning, monitoring, policy making, strategy formulation and smooth implementation of schemes for the farmers a nationwide Farmers Database linked with land records is being created with the following objective: