IFFCO Kisan Call Centres operating from 21 locations in 22 languages are working overtime these days. The reason behind these enhanced activities is arrival of the monsoon. “KCC are receiving more than 35,000 calls per day”, claimed an official.
The number of calls depends on the weather and the sowing season of crops but generally, during the monsoon season, the frequency of calls received by KCC reaches its peak. Kisan Call Centre (KCC) is now working as a backbone for the farmers to get instant information from Agri-experts, he claimed.
It bears recall that Department of Agriculture and Co-operation, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare had been running the Kisan Call Centers but since 2012, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited is executing the KCC project.
IFFCO Kisan with the help of more than 600 Agriculture Graduates, Post Graduates and Scientists-known as Farm Tele Advisors, has been guiding farmers in all aspects of agriculture, fisheries, weather updates and allied subjects, claimed a release from IFFCO Kisan.
Kisan Call Centre has been providing advisory services, weather updates, Mandi prices, Animal Husbandry, education, health, govt. policies and related information on the allied subjects to the farmers in their preferred local languages since its inception. Since the last decade, it has been successfully harnessing ICT services in agriculture with the sole purpose of benefitting the farmers.
“Farmers can reach out to agriculture experts by dialling a TOLL-FREE NUMBER – 1800-180-1551 from a landline and any public or private mobile network. Farmers can access KCC services between 6 am to 10 pm throughout the week”, informs the mail.
Sandeep Malhotra, MD, IFFCO KISAN, said, “We’ve been providing the advisory services to the farming community since 2007 through our Green SIM. Green SIM provides voice-based agricultural information on a daily basis in the preferred regional languages to farmers.
IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited has been working towards empowering farmers through its value- added services like Green SIM, IFFCO Kisan Mobile App, My Urban Gardening, Promoting Farmer’s Club and FPO’s, Commodity trading, Sampark & Samadhan services.”
IFFCO Kisan has also received several awards like ‘Coffey International Award’ by ‘Business in the Community’ (BITC) in 2011 for its huge success. IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited also awarded as the Best ‘Jury Award’ for ICT enabled Agriculture Initiative for the Project m-Powering Farmers at eWorld Forum 2011, among others.
Our organization collaborated with National Federation of Fishermen’s Cooperatives Ltd. (FISHCOPFED) and Odisha fisheries department to send SMS alerts to farmers and fishermen about various government-sponsored schemes, weather alerts, and market price of fish, claimed Malhotra, which was seconded by Fishcopfed MD B K Mishra.