Govt launches 3 agri-portals to improve transparency

The government on Wednesday launched three agri-portals to make the process of organic farming certification, fertilisers' quality checking and issuance of soil health cards, more transparent and accountable.

These portals, launched only in English, will be made available in regional languages also in the next phase for the benefit of farmers.

"The three agricultural portals will bring more transparency and accountability. This will help the farming community," Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh told reporters after unveiling the portals.

To improve soil health of farm land, the portal 'www.soilhealth.dac.gov.in' has been developed for registration of soil samples, recording test results of samples and generation of soil health card along with fertiliser recommendations.

The portal has sample tracking feature and will provide alerts to farmers about sample registration and generation of soil health cards through SMS and emails.

This will also help the government build a single database for future use in research and planning.

To ensure that quality fertilisers are sold to farmers, the portal 'www.fqcs.dac.gov.in' has been developed for processing of fertiliser samples, testing and generation of reports.

This will lead to automation of most of the manual activities and help in online tracking of the status of samples. Mobile application has also been provided to enable fertiliser inspectors to enter the details of samples while at the port itself. In the first phase, this system will be implemented at the Mumbai-based Central Fertiliser Quality Control and Training Institute and three regional fertiliser control laboratories.