President Pranab Mukherjee launched Kisaan Portal for Sending SMS to Farmers

President Pranab Mukherjee on 16 July 2013 launched a Kisaan Portal for sending SMS through mobile phones to the farmers across the country.

The SMS initiative is an instant and non-intruding medium communication enabling the farmers to take informed decision relating to different aspects of farming and weather forecasts.

The Kisaan Portal directly aimed at spreading information, advisories and services through SMS to more than 12 crore farmers across the country. Farmers will need to register for this service by calling Kisaan Call Centre on the toll free number 1800-180-1551 or through the web portal.

Advantages of the SMS Advisories

• The SMS advisories and alerts is supposed to help farmers in taking informed decisions relating to different aspects of farming including crop production and marketing, animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries.
• The farmers can opt to receive SMS messages customized to their specific requirements.
• Weather forecast SMS and alerts will enable farmers in planning, farming operations effectively and taking the best suited action to deal with adverse weather conditions.
• Advisories on disease/pest outbreak will also help the farmers immensely to take immediate actions to secure their crops and animals. Advisories on best practices, such as selection of better suited crop variety/ animal breed, will lead to better farm productivity and higher income to the farmers.
• Timely market information will be provided through SMS ad will give the farmer better bargaining power which in turn assist farmers in taking better decisions about sale of his produce.
• SMS advisories will also include soil test results, selection of fertilizer and its dosage, and also information on various programmes so that farmers can make the best use of assistance and know-how being made available by the Government.