Fadnavis Holds Meeting to Expedite Agri Stack Initiative

Mumbai: In a bid to plug leakages in the subsidies provided to the farmers, the Maharashtra government has set a target to register all farmers under Agri Stack, which will provide a farmer Digital ID with a unique number. This will help the government to provide subsidies to the genuine and intended beneficiaries in a time bound manner. The Agriculture department of the state has set a deadline to provide Digital ID to 1.19 crore farmers in the next 100 days. Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has instructed the agriculture department to expedite the process of providing digital IDs to farmers.

The Agri Stack is an initiative of the government of India. It aims to help the farmers to get easier access to cheaper credit, high-quality farm inputs, localised and specific advice, which help to improve the agriculture sector in the country and enable better outcomes.

The CM chaired a meeting with senior officials including state chief secretary Sujata Saunik and agriculture department secretary Jayshree Bhoj in connection with the government’s 100-days plan and flagship schemes.

A senior official, who attended this meeting, told this newspaper that there are 1.19 crore farmers including 97 lakh PM Kisan beneficiaries across the state. “To expedite the process of giving digital ID to the farmers, the CM has instructed the department to take help of agriculture assistants, gram sevaks, and talathi (village accountant). He has also asked the finance department to positively consider remuneration demands raised by them for this work,” the senior official said.

In the meeting, Mr. Fadnavis also instructed the agriculture department to coordinate with the Information Technology (IT) Department and Settlement Commissioner to complete the work in the stipulated period.

An official from the Agriculture department said they are going to organise a camp to enroll the farmers under the Agri Stack. “We have instructed all the district collectors to hold a camp of two to three days in those villages, which have internet connectivity. A peasant’s name and farm land belonging to him will be linked with his Aadhar number in the camp,” the official said.

The official also said that the digital ID will have the name of the farmer along with a unique number. This unique number will create a digital account for the farmer, which will have the records of the land belonging to him, Geo-referencing of the land and crop survey report. “Once we have all the records of the farmers, we will get an idea how much fertilisers and seeds are needed for a particular farmer. This will help us to plug the leakages into the system. At present, we don’t know how much fertilisers and seeds are being provided to a particular farmer,” the official added.

According to the officials, the Agri Stack initiative would make it easier for the government to plan and implement various farm related schemes. The government has already done the enrollment of the farmers in 362 villages on the pilot basis project.