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India to launch spoken web service for farmers
Friday January 13, 2012 03:33:05 PM, Richa
Sharma,
IANS
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New Delhi:
Soon farmers across the country can get their agriculture and
weather-related queries answered quickly. The Indian government is
planning to launch a spoken web service that will provide an
interactive medium for the farming community.
In a country where close to 60 percent of the 1.21 billion
population still depends on agriculture for a living, the spoken
web service can be a boon to farmers in distant areas.
The Ministry of Earth Sciences has approached IT giant IBM to
design a dedicated agromet (agriculture meteorological) service
for farmers. The company has recently launched a similar service
for farmers to connect them to Amul Dairy.
The ministry already provides SMS and an Integrated Voice Response
System (IVRS) service to farmers, giving them farming information,
weather and climatic details to help them meet agricultural
targets.
The need for the spoken web service was felt to provide
information in an interactive mode. "Through SMS and IVRS service,
farmers only get updates but through spoken web service they can
ask questions and get answers for their queries related to
agriculture," Shailesh Nayak, secretary in the ministry, told
IANS.
Nayak said the ministry has approached IBM for developing the
dedicated service for farmers.
However, IBM denied any information on the project.
Spoken web is a project where people can speak and interact with
web information through voice. Farmers can dial a toll-free number
and ask questions and get them answered. Specific questions would
be recorded and later answered by experts.
"Spoken web service will be of great use to illiterate farmers who
are not technologically equipped," he said.
The SMS and IVRS mode were launched in 2009 covering 5,000
farmers. It now covers 2.8 million growers and by 2017 the method
would cover 20 million.
While the India Meteorological Department (IMD) dishes out the
weather report, the Integrated Agromet Advisory Service --
involving organisations like the Indian Council of Agricultural
Research (ICAR), Ministry of Agriculture (Central and State) and
State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) -- gives weather-based agro
advisories specifically meant for the farming community.
The SMSs are being sent to farmers in their regional language on
their mobile phones. The IVRS was developed keeping in mind
illiterate people as they can listen to an automated message and
get farming information.
The short and timely alerts to farmers about the weather have led
to economic benefits worth a whopping Rs.50,000 crore annually.
According to a National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)
report, roughly 24 percent of farmers in over 550 districts are
either aware or using the Agromet services, while two million
farmers are availing themselves of the mobile SMS service which
started over a year ago.
The report says the Rs.50,000 crore figure could rise to
Rs.211,000 crore if the entire farming community in the country
was to judiciously use the Agromet information and apply it to
agricultural activities.
(Richa Sharma
can be contacted at richa.s@ians.in)
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