Govt to rope in tech-savvy villages to push crop survey

With the ambitious app-based crop survey showing signs of fatigue, the state government has decided to rope in tech-savvy residents in villages to help farmers and give the exercise a push towards the finish line.

The 2020-21 crop survey is a first-of-its-kind exercise in India, the government has claimed, as farmers have been allowed to upload their crop details on their own through a mobile app.

Karnataka has 2.12 crore agricultural plots (every piece of land with survey number is considered one plot). More than a month after the crop survey was launched, crop data has been uploaded for 73 lakh agricultural plots, which is a progress of just 34% till September 8.

“Our expectation is that we will still reach the one crore mark with the help of farmers alone,” Agriculture Commissioner Brijesh Kumar Dikshit told DH. “Using private residents was a fallback option, which the government has decided to exercise now to push the progress rate up,” he said.

A private resident is someone tech-savvy who has an Android-powered smartphone, Dikshit said.

“These persons are engaged by the taluk administration and they’re paid Rs 10-20 for every crop captured,” he said, adding that such private residents did the crop survey in 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20.

The survey is crucial as it will provide policymakers with data on crops being grown by 73 lakh-odd farmers in the state, which will be used to determine Minimum Support Price (MSP) and insurance benefits. The data is also linked with land records so that records of rights, tenancy and crops (RTC) or Pahani documents reflect crop details.

The use of private residents will also come handy in villages where the app does not work as the maps are not digitized. “Digitization will take time. So, in villages without digital maps, instead of leaving farmers wondering what to do, we will use private residents who will do the job along with village accountants who will have a hard copy of the village map,” Dikshit said.

According to data, the flood-hit Kodagu district has registered the lowest crop survey progress at 12.67%, followed by Bengaluru Urban (15.18%), Bengaluru Rural (18.26%) and Mandya (19.57%).

This year’s floods have destroyed crops on 4.02 lakh hectares. “In such places, the survey will simply record no crop,” Dikshit said. The last date for the ongoing crop survey is September 23.