Kisan Rath App | 18 Apr 2020
Why in News
The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has launched ‘Kisan Rath’ mobile application (app) to facilitate transportation of foodgrains and perishable during lockdown.
- The application has been developed by the National Informatics Centre -NIC (backed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology).
- It will be available in eight languages initially, including english and hindi.
Key Points
- The app is expected to connect farmers and traders to a network of more than 5 lakh trucks and 20,000 tractors.
- It is meant to help farmers and traders who are searching for vehicles to move produce. This includes:
- Primary transport from the farm to the mandis, local warehouses or the collection centres of farmer producer organisations.
- Secondary transport from the local mandis to intra-and inter-State mandis, processing units, railway stations, warehouses or wholesalers.
- The Government has granted relaxation in the nationwide lockdown for activities related to agriculture-farming and allied activities with a view to address problems being faced by the farming community.
- The app will be a stepping stone towards provision of timely transportation service at competitive rates for farmers and traders, besides achieving a reduction in food wastage.
- This will help in ensuring better prices of the produce to farmers.