State races to complete farmer data collection under Agri Stack initiative before March 2025 deadline.
Kakinada: The Andhra Pradesh government is expediting the farmer registry, to enable it to get a grant of Rs 637 crore from the central government under Special Central Assistance provision.
According to the Farmer Registry, the Union government decided to give an 11-digit unique number to farmers based on the Aadhar number along with a digitally verifiable credential. It is compiled by the states according to common standards.
This is a central component of the Agri Stack initiative and a digital base that stores comprehensive information about farmers, including their personal details, land ownership records, crop details and other relevant agricultural information.
This is designed to streamline government service delivery to farmers and facilitate the creation of a unified platform for farmers to access various services and information. “The main objectives of the farmer registry are to standardise farmer data at state level, assignment of unique farmer IDs by the Centre, enable Aadhaar-based payments, efficient implementation of various government schemes through digital integration and convenience etc,” officials said.
This will ensure benefits reaching directly to farmers, preventing duplication, providing easier access to services like government schemes, crop loans, crop procurement and other services without paper-based procedures. It simplifies the process, reduces fraud, ensures that benefits are delivered to the right farmers and empowers financial inclusion like the Kisan Credit Card and insurance benefits.
The first preference is for registering the farmer-beneficiaries under the PM Kishan scheme, officials said.
However, the Union finance ministry issued SCA guidelines for states and allocated Rs 5,000 crore on a ‘first come first serve’ basis for creation of the Farmer Registry before March 2025.
As per rule, if the state government completes the farmer registry, it can get Rs 637 crore. According to the officials,
if 30 per cent of the farmer registration is completed, the state can get that much part of the funds before the end of February.
So, the state government is expediting the process of registering the farmers, collecting aadhar number and pattadar pass book details.
According to sources, there are nearly 43,40,215 farmers, out of which data of 8 lakh farmers was collected so far. Kakinada district is at the forefront in the registrations.
Kakinada district collector Shan Mohan asked mandal tahsildars and agriculture officials to complete the data within 10 days. He said both the revenue and agriculture departments have to coordinate in completion of the work in camp mode.
