Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operative Department, Government of India has launched a new software known as ‘HORTNET’ which will store all information of a farmer and will help Government in reaching out to them for delivering benefits related to agriculture in the most efficient and transparent manner.
State Horticulture Mission will provide help which is managed by Government of India. HORTNET is a unique involvement to accomplish e-Governance in National Horticulture Mission and All State Horticulture Missions where in total transparency has been envisaged in all the processes of workflow that is online application filing, authentication, processing and online payment to the beneficiary’s bank account. SMS based e-alerting is an added feature of the system.
Technical Director of NHM, Rakesh Vardhan said, “HORTNET is farmer friendly database which extents up to the block level. This will help the farmers to apply online, get information about the best practices and can keep track of their requests. The registered applications will be further forwarded to the officials.” He further added, “Instead of running from pillar to post now farmers can avail the benefits meant for them online. Things will now turn digital reducing the paper work. Four technologies are used in this which is SMS technology, Payment Gateway, Biometrics and GPRS technology.”
Thousands of crores are being spent by Government for welfare of farmers related to Agriculture, Horticulture, Fisheries, Apiculture, Animal husbandry etc. to bring in transparency and efficiency in the whole process. This has farmer interface to provide all services online and some services through mobile. The farmers can also avail the services of Hortnet using the Community internet centers. Director of State Horticulture Mission, Prabhakar Singh said, “HORTNET is to bring efficiency and transparency in managing the farmer beneficiary welfare schemes of the Government and to provide one-stop non-stop digital services to the farmers.”
