4.6 Crore Farmers Get IDs Under Digital Agri Mission: Chouhan

New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) Over 4.6 crore farmers have been given IDs so far under the digital agriculture mission and efforts are on to help remaining farmers get registered under such digital IDs, Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

Replying to supplementaries, the minister said as many as 7,708 lakh farmers have so far received insurance cover under the PM Fasal Bima Yojna and farmers have received claims of Rs 1.74 lakh crore since 2016 under the scheme which has now emerged as the world's largest crop insurance scheme.

Chouhan termed the digital agriculture mission as a "revolutionary step" which will help change the lives of India's farmers in the country.

"Over 4.6 crore farmers have already got their farmer IDs made and efforts are being made fast with the help of states to get the remaining farmers across the country get such IDs. I urge members also to help in getting the farmer IDs made," he said in the upper house.

On the PM Fasal Bima Yojna, he said farmers on their own get insurance of their crops and informed the house that loanee as well as non-loanee farmers have started getting crop insurance under the scheme.

"I am happy to inform you that the Fasal Bima Yojna has today become the world's largest crop insurance scheme. The scheme was launched in 2016 and so far 7,708 lakh farmers have received insurance cover under the scheme.

"Farmers have made crop insurance claims of Rs 1,74,432 crore under the scheme, even though the farmer's premium was only Rs 32,000 crore. This is PM Narendra Modi government that against Rs 32,000 crore premium, a total of 1.74 lakh crore has gone into farmers' accounts as claims," the minister told members.

Chouhan said had these schemes been there during previous governments then farmers would not have suffered. The previous governments never thought about the plight of farmers, he lamented.

The previous governments had made fun of villages, asking how could POS machines function there without power, he noted.

Common people are getting digitally aware and are using digital technology under PM Modi's government, which has brought in digital revolution and farmers are benefitting from it, the agriculture minister said.

In his written reply, he said the government has approved the Digital Agriculture Mission in September 2024 with a total outlay of Rs 2,817 crore.

"The Mission envisages the creation of a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for Agriculture such as AgriStack, Krishi Decision Support System, and a comprehensive Soil Fertility & Profile Map to enable a robust digital agriculture ecosystem in the country. This, in turn, would drive innovative farmer-centric digital solutions and make reliable crop-related information available to all the farmers on time. The AgriStack DPI consists of three foundational registries or databases associated with the agriculture sector, i.e., Geo- Referenced Village Maps, Crop Sown Registry and the Farmers Registry - all created and maintained by the State Governments/ Union Territories.

"The Geo-Referenced Village Maps are location-based digital maps created by using Satellite and GIS technology. The Crop Sown Registry has been created through the Digital Crop Survey (DCS). Under DCS, details of crop sown in a plot of land, viz. the type of Crop, Area of the plot covered by the crop, irrigation particulars, if any, among others are also captured," he said.

The database, thus, created provides an accurate, real-time crop-area information for every plot of land, he noted.

The Farmers Registry has been envisaged as a dynamic, accurate, verified and approved database of farmers created and managed by the states/Union Territories. It provides for comprehensive and useful data on farmers comprising of authenticated demographic details, land holdings, family details, crops sown, soil health, livestock owned, fishery assets owned and other vocations, the minister said.

"It enables the farmers to digitally identify and authenticate themselves for accessing various benefits and services associated with the agriculture and allied activities viz. credit, insurance, procurement, marketing facilities etc," he noted.