Next 7: Department of Agriculture and Cooperation 

Thursday, June 08, 2006

DACNET follows a very transparent approach in providing a comprehensive resource of agriculture-related information through a website open to all. Though it is operational in both Hindi and English as of now, DAC aims to convert it into other major regional languages so that the benefits can be directly delivered to the end user. This powerful e-governance initiative focuses on increasing value in DAC (Department of Agriculture and Cooperation) and enhancing its relationships with its minimum agenda of e-governance.

Business problem  Agricultural information was not directly available to the farming community and planners
IT solution A web-based centralized repository of information in the public domain
Implemented by National Informatics Center, Delhi
Technology platform  Database server, ISA, Visio-2000 and Office-XP
	Dr M V S Sarma Senior Technical DirectorNational Informatics Center

It aims at integrating Government functions (G2G), integrating agri-business partners (B2B), connecting farmers (C2C) and empowering employees (A2E).

The first step to bridge these islands of information was to network all Directorates, Regional Directorates and their Field Units with the Central Project Unit.

It is a very exhaustive portal at http://dacnet.nic.in/ that also links the likes of plant quarantine reports, weather watch, etc. Once can also get the state-wise, market-wise reports of prices for various agricultural products for a particular time period. This enables decision makers to make quick decisions by making use of that information, thus, reducing the cost and increasing the productivity. It allows for an interactive exchange of information for planning and day-to-day operations by farmers. This is done through the advisory and extension services available at the agriculture information centers (like Krishi Vikas Kendras or KVKs) in each village. There is data lying from as much as 5-6 decades back for the purposes of understanding the agricultural history of a region or drawing area-wise/crop-wise patterns out of it. the impact of the project has been so that the Customer Satisfaction Index is a soaring high of 91.5%.

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