The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Portal for wholesale farm markets to be recreated in all languages

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 24, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Portal for wholesale farm markets to be recreated in all languages

By T. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI, DEC. 23. The National Informatics Centre, an agency of the Union Government, has decided to recreate in regional languages its portal for agricultural wholesale markets.

"At present, our portal (www. agmarknet.nic.in) is in English, providing information on wholesale prices of 1,200 varieties of 300 commodities. We have planned to make it available in all the languages recognised by the Constitution and will complete this project by 2007," says D. Moni, Deputy Director-General of the NIC.

For the portal project, the NIC has planned to cover a total of 7,000 wholesale markets and 32,000 rural markets. Now, data from 1,200 wholesale markets are available. "We have proposed to cover 1,000 more by the end of March," Mr. Moni says, adding that once all the wholesale markets are covered, this will trigger the flow of data from rural markets.

The purpose of the project is to establish agricultural marketing information network (AGMARKNET), linking all important agricultural produce markets and State Agricultural Marketing Boards and departments. This will enable farmers to take market-based decisions. All the data compiled are available on the website, providing information on arrivals of commodities besides minimum and maximum prices.

Stating that the portal was operationalised two years ago, Mr. Moni notes that it evinced interest from several agriculture-based countries including Pakistan and South Africa. "They are keen to know how we have been developing the network," the official says, adding that the portal project has been fully funded by the Ministry of Agriculture.

The NIC will soon implement a programme for creating a comprehensive village-level information system, focussing on socio and economic indicators. The Union Planning Commission has given approval for this project, covering all the villages in one backward district of every State. Data with reference to natural and human resources, infrastructure, and sectors such as health and education in the villages will be collected. Students will be involved in this task.

Networking

Mr. Moni says the NIC has given a proposal to the Government for networking of all the cooperative societies, numbering 1.25 lakh. There are 98,000 primary agricultural cooperative societies. Nearly 45 per cent of rural credit in the country is disbursed through such bodies. According to the proposal, a special purpose vehicle should be set up with the participation of private sector.

Noting that the Government has proposed to double the agricultural credit in three years, he says that if this plan is to be meaningfully implemented, it is imperative that all the cooperative societies be interlinked.

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