The Centre is planning to generate 12-digit unique IDs for farmers to allow them easy and "seamless" access to farm-related schemes and it will be released in the coming months, a senior government official told The Indian Express.
“The intent is to create a unified farmer service interface. The unique ID will enable them to seamlessly avail various Government schemes and credit facilities, and help the Centre and state governments in better planning of procurement operations,” Vivek Aggarwal, Additional Secretary, Ministry’s Digital Agriculture Division, told The Indian Express.
The database will collate data from existing farmer schemes such as PM-Kisan, Soil Health Card and PM Fasal Bima Yojana and link them with land records. Aadhaar will also be used as a deduplication mechanism.
So far, a database for 11 states including Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh has been developed by the government. The remaining states, including Telangana, Kerala and Punjab, will be completed within a few months.
“We have started internally generating unique farmer IDs and once we are ready with the database of 8 crore farmers, we will launch this,” the official is quoted as saying in the report.
Linkage of land parcels through a Geographical Information System (GIS), where maps are digitised by states, will be used. The GIS data of land parcels will help farmers in getting precise advisories, Agarwal said.
The plan to subject such an ID to farmers and the creation of a database was mentioned in the course of the Chief Ministers’ Conference earlier this month. On September 6, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar had mentioned that his Ministry has created a database of 5.5 crore farmers, to be elevated to 8 crore by December.
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