Page 48 - Informatics, July 2020

IN FOCUS

KisanRath App

Facilitating transportation of agri-produce

ransportation of agriculture produce
from farm to end consumer is a critical
component of the agri-supply chain.
TPrevailing lockdown in the country due
to COVID-19 made it even more difficult for
the farmers and traders to hire transporter for
transporting the agri-produce, thereby result-
ing in a shortage of fresh agri-produce in the
markets and food wastage along the supply 1.75 Lakh+
chain.
The mandate to “Explore the use of inno- Farmers
vative solutions like ‘truck aggregators’ on the
lines of app-based cab services to connect
farmers with “Mandis” was given by Hon’ble
Prime Minister on 6th April 2020, during his
interaction with Central Ministers. Accordingly,
NIC was asked to develop such a solution on an 77000+
immediate basis. Traders
The solution was developed in the form of
a mobile app named “Kisan Rath” which facil-
itates farmers & traders to search and contact
the transporters for transporting the agri-pro-
duce. The app, launched by Union Minister of 1.9 Lakh+
Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Naren-
dra Singh Tomar on 17th April 2020, enables Vehicles
the consignor (farmer, FPOs, trader) to post a
load for transportation which is disseminated
to transport aggregators and individual trans-
porters in the market who can then revert with
a quote against the posted load. Thereafter, the
consignor can negotiate with the transporter/
aggregator and finalize the deal. The app also
facilitates the hiring of tractor trolleys for small Hon’ble Union Minister
loads over and short distance. Shri Narendar Singh Tomar
inaugurating the
NIC rolled out the app within a very chal- Kisan Rath App
lenging timeframe of 10 days comprising of
conceptualisation of app, functional and tech- Since its launch “Kisan Rath” has benefitted
nical requirement finalisation, onboarding of the farmers and traders by ensuring smooth
development team, infra setup, development, and seamless supply linkages between farmers,
integration with transport aggregators via warehouses, FPOs, APMC mandis and intra-State Dr. Ranjna Nagpal
APIs, import of master data from eNAM, en- & inter-State buyers. Till date 1.75 Lakh+ farmers, Dy. Director General
abling multi-lingual support, testing and host- 77000+ traders, 1.9 Lakh+ vehicles (from 23,000+ ranjna@nic.in
ing on Google play store. The iOS version was service providers and 8 major aggregators) have
launched subsequently. been onboarded on the app.

48 informatics.nic.in Covid-19 Special Issue