Wired for Ground: Tech army heads for fields

Further, every village unit of the FFS will be run by an expert group known as the Land Army. The 10-million farming families in Maharashtra’s villages will be divided into self-help groups of 20 farmers each; these groups will each have a Land Army contact soldier visiting everyday to update them on the latest technological and agricultural know-how. A group of five such soldiers will report to a captain.

‘‘Over one lakh rural youth, preferably agricultural graduates or diploma holders, will function as soldiers. The Agriculture department will help interested rural youths to set up their own agri clinics, agri business centres, agri knowledge centres and bio-pesticides laboratories,’’ Agriculture Minister Govindrao Adik told The Indian Express. The state government, not unsurprisingly, is banking on the FFS to swing votes in these times of hard politics.

With sponsorships and private participation, the government plans to establish state-of-the-art information centres in every village with Internet connectivity based on the WLL technology developed by Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai. ‘‘Each centre run by agro entrepreneurs will be equipped with a television set, computer (with Internet connection), telephone and a library on agriculture and technology,’’ said Adik.

Fifty such agro information centres will be connected to a regional centre for agro information, which will also act as a local service provider as envisaged in the WLL technology. This includes a 40-m RF Tower and an optical fibre connected centre, said the minister.

The captains will assemble at the village information centre everyday to catch up on the latest updates from an extension officer of the Agriculture department, who will help them assimilate and disseminate relevant information. The captains will then share the information with the soldiers, who will fan into the fields the very same day.

The entire project is expected to cost around Rs 100 crore.