Bhubaneswar: Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment and Fisheries & Animal Resources Development, Ranendra Pratap Swain conducted a review meeting on Saturday to take stock of different schematic interventions, achievements and monitoring through digitised platform Krushi Samiksha Kendra (KSK).
The review meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, A&FE Department, Dr Arabinda K Padhee, Principal Secretary, F&ARD Department, Suresh K Vashisth, Director of Agriculture & FP, Director of Horticulture, Director of Soil Conservation & WD, Director of Fisheries and Director Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Services and other senior officers of the Directorates.
Besides all District level officials from all three Directorates of the A&FE Department joined the review meeting through OSWAN points from District Headquarters.
At the outset, Principal Secretary, A&FE Department, outlined and threw light on different Departmental schematic interventions and initiatives taken to make the State’s Agriculture more vibrant and farmer-centric.
As the Kharif season is in full swing, the Minister emphasized on timely supply of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertiliser and other critical inputs to the farmers. He also instructed to facilitate the credit facility to the farmers in a time-bound manner to expedite the agricultural operations in a more scientific and innovative way.
Minister Swain was very apprehensive about the climate aberrations which not only influence agricultural production in the State but also delay agricultural operations.
Keeping that in view, the rainfall status of the State as well as districts was reviewed and suggested the field functionaries to be in readiness to arrest or to prevent the prevailing dry spells.
Besides, Crop Coverage of different Districts, pre-positioning of inputs like Seeds & Fertilisers, area sown under NFSM (Rice), Green Manuring under Dhanicha cultivation, development and Area Coverage under Potato, Vegetables & Spices and development and ongoing status of MGNREGS- Farm Ponds were reviewed by the Minister.
It is pertinent to mention here that, agriculture in the State has been transformed due to technological innovations, interventions and digitisation.
In this backdrop, a new digital platform named Krushi Samiksha Kendra (KSK) has been installed and institutionalised to capture the real-time ground data, analyse the raw data and publish the data to bring a radical and science-based decision support system to make the agricultural operations more vigilant, accountable and transparent. This initiative is the first of its kind- an Integrated Command & Control Centre in the agriculture domain.
The KSK operating in Krushi Bhawan premises is a state of art and showcases agriculture innovations, and evidence-based scientific applications in the production portfolio in the State.
Under the guidance of the Principal Secretary, A&FE Department the entire team of KSK is committed to transform the facsimile of State agriculture to a completely revamped digitised agricultural ecosystem which not only will be resilient to the perils of climate change but also will make the agricultural production system sustainable.
The inclusion of KSK will help create policy space to accommodate more and more ground data on various critical issues and to develop rational, logical and doable policy innovations.
Krushi Samiksha Kendra (KSK) was inaugurated by Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik on the auspicious occasion of Akshaya Trutiya on 23rd April, 2023.
As India’s first Integrated Command and Control Centre in the agriculture domain, the KSK monitors schematic interventions & service delivery, generates the data on different weather parameters & their impact study on different agricultural operations and extra provides real time ground data to leverage and publish evidence-based policy design by the Department, leveraging through the ADAPT Decision Support System, rule-based personalised nudges & alerts to officials, and regular surveys of farmers and other stakeholders in the agriculture ecosystem.
