Agartala:Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar on saturday opened Northeast’s first Kisan Call Centre (KCC) and farmers’ portal here to facilitate real time advisory to the farmers. Tripura government financed call centre will be run by a private enterprise with experts of agriculture, horticulture, fisheries and animal husbandry from 6 am to 10 pm everyday.
The farmer from any part of the world can avail the facility of farm advisory calling to toll free 1551. Speaking in the occasion Sarkar informed that the state government has been looking for dedicated advisory service centre since 2004. Initially, Government of India had started the service in all the states through IFFCO.
But it failed because they could not cater to the farmers. Later, in Guwahati another call centre was set up with state specific desk for northeastern states. But they also could not serve the farmers because of language deficiency in their end.
More than 29000 calls of Tripura farmers were unattended in Guwahati centre in past one year. In January 2015 about 500 farmers called for advisory but none of the call was attended. As a result, the demand for better Kisan call centre equipped with major Indian languages has further gained ground.
“Tripura is pioneer in setting up Kisan Call Centre, which will give immediate solution to the farmers If needs expert’s consultation regarding seed procure-ment to marketing of the produces, the farmers will be given service within 48 hours free of cost,” Sarkar stated.
He however, pointed out that most of the farmers in Indian states are facing almost similar type of pro-blem in farming activities due to absence of reliable guidance that also affecting the production in long-run. The Kisan Call Centre began operation in Agartala also can look after the issues of the farmers in other states too.
Apart from that the farmers portal is issuing on time advisory for farm production under direct supervision of the experts. Flaying the role of NDA government at the centre Sarkar alleged that Narendra Modi government does not have any policy for boosting agriculture and allied sector. Rather the decision of the government is counter-productive to agriculture.
“As many as 1200 far-mers committed suicide and 69,000 farmers mostly in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have attempted to commit suicide during first 100 days of Modi’s rule. The situation of farmers is remained unchanged till date,” he alleged.
Sarkar further stated that farmers are not getting seed, fertilizer and agri-appliances in subsided cost except in Tripura. Government of India has the policy to procure the agricultural and horticultural produces from the states at minimum support price. But centre is not doing it, which further deepening the crisis of the farming community. (UNI)
