Bhubaneswar: The 8th State Level Steering Committee meeting of AgriStack-Odisha was held on August 4 at Lok Seva Bhavan under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Anu Garg, with a focus on accelerating farmer registration and rolling out the Digital Crop Survey for Kharif-2026.
Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue & Disaster Management Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee, Principal Secretaries of Finance, Food Supply & Consumer Welfare, and Commissioners & Secretaries of Agriculture & Farmers Empowerment, Cooperation, Fisheries & ARD, and MSME departments attended. From the Centre, Additional Secretary, Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Dr. Pramod Kumar Meherda and Principal Knowledge Officer, AgriStack-Odisha Mission Raji Jiwa Chawla joined virtually.
AgriStack is a joint initiative of the Government of India and states to digitally transform agriculture. Under it, farmers will get a single digital identity — Farmer ID — through which government schemes, crop insurance, institutional loans, input assistance and agri-advisory can be accessed on one unified platform.
Registration Status
Agriculture & Farmers Empowerment Commissioner-cum-Secretary Sachin Ramachandra Yadhav informed the committee that Odisha has set a target to register 44,38,559 farmers across 30 districts. So far, 20,75,683 farmers have been registered and the process is ongoing. Jharsuguda leads with 75.78% registration. About 7 lakh farmers were registered between January and July 2026, with a record 2,29,700 registrations in May alone. The committee reviewed monthly district-wise progress and discussed action points from the survey conducted on December 11, 2025.To streamline implementation, the meeting proposed setting up an AgriStack Commissionerate in the state headed by a Director-level officer.
Technical support will come from Revenue, Agriculture, and E&IT departments. At the district level, a committee under the Collector and at the block level under the Tahasildar will oversee work, supported by a state-level PMU. The Chief Secretary directed the Revenue, Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare, and Agriculture departments to jointly prepare a clear SOP for identifying genuine farmers, sharecroppers and others engaged in cultivation to make registration easy, transparent and time-bound. Departments were told to ensure data quality and complete pending approvals within the stipulated timeline.
Digital Crop Survey For Kharif-2026
The committee also reviewed Rabi-2025 and Kharif-2026 Digital Crop Survey preparations. In Rabi-2025, 53,78,625 hectares were surveyed, with crops identified on 19,91,110 hectares — about 37% of the area. For Kharif-2026, the DCS will begin on August 16, 2026 and run for 45 days to two months. Field staff training at block and district level will be completed between August 5 and August 17. To ensure accuracy, surveys will be done about a month after sowing and at least 15 days before harvest. GPS accuracy has been tightened — data must be collected within 10 meters of plot boundaries, compared to 20 meters in Rabi.
The DCS mobile app will be upgraded with a stronger AI-based system for real-time identification and verification of rice and non-rice crops. Weekly block-level and fortnightly district-level committee meetings have been mandated for monitoring.
Chief Secretary Garg said authentic data from DCS will be critical for crop insurance, production estimation, agricultural planning and policy making.
“AgriStack will prove to be a milestone in empowering farmers and making government services more transparent, accountable and effective through technology,” she added.
