mKisan Portal

mKisan is an SMS portal set up by the Hon'ble President of India for farmers that empowers all central and state government organisations in agriculture and allied sectors to give information or services to farmers regarding agricultural practices. Under mKisan USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data), IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) and Pull SMS are value-added services which have enabled farmers and other stakeholders to receive not only broadcast messages but also to get web-based services on their mobile without having internet facilities. In this article, we look at the mKisan portal in detail.

Objective of the mKisan

The objective of the mKisan portal are as follows:

mKisan serves as the two-way communication portal which is not only for providing information or services to the farmers but also farmers can raise specific queries through Pull SMS or USSD.
Using a Centralized system wherein different modes of information flow are channelised and spread to the farmers in their language.
This Integrated Portal helps to ensure proper storage in previous advisories or SMS and also efficient monitoring at different levels.
The integrated database from the State Governments, Universities, KVKs web-based registration, Kisan Call Centres etc. is maintained.
Provision of web-based services through SMS or USSD is, therefore, the support of the entire project.
Integration with other services such as Kisan Call Centres, Common Service Centres, Websites for extracting necessary information and also for providing data from remote locations where the Internet is not available or is unreliable.

Services under mKisan

These portal facilities the people with the following services are listed out.

Pull SMS
IVRS
Push SMS
Ksewa
KCC
Buy Seller

Pull SMS

Pull SMS is utilised by farmers and various stakeholders to extract details from databases by forwarding SMS in a particular form to any of the following two numbers are 51969 or 7738299899.

IVRS

Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) is an automatic telephony system that communicates with callers, collects details and routes calls to the relevant recipient. An IVR application gives pre-recorded voice responses for appropriate situations, keypad signal logic, access to specific details and the ability to record voice input for later use. Using computer telephony integration (CTI), IVR applications do efficient work in handling a call. Usually, an IVR system consists of telephony equipment, software applications, a database and the supporting infrastructure.

Types of IVRS Calls in mKisan

Outbound Calls- These are used for obtaining feedback of farmers regarding the advisories they are receiving from experts. Inbound Calls- Farmers can call this number (022-67870177) for giving useful feedback on the services or for obtaining any information.

Push SMS

Farmers can enrol themselves for receiving these SMS on their mobiles as per their particular needs and relevance in a specific point of time. They can register themselves for this service through any of these channels.

Website Registration
Kisan Call Centers (KCC) by calling on Toll-free number-1800-180-1551
Sending SMS at 51969 or 9212357123
Common Service Centers (CSCs)
State/District or block agriculture offices

Ksewa

State Governments and all other departments may start using KSeva for providing services effectively and pervasively. The following are the list of functions described under Ksewa.

Commodity market price
KCC
SMS-insurance
Hortnet SMS
Price alert
Agricultural information service
Soil health card
Status messages for e-payment
Extension reforms monitoring system
Farm mechanisation system
Eparwana
Subsidy seed distribution
KS1
Online license management system OLMS
Training information
USSD
Buyer registration
EMS
Schemes and programmes
E-lab fertiliser

Ksewa Registration

The Ksewa registration can be performed through the mKisan portal, follow the steps specified here. Step 1: Visit the official portal of mKisan to register under Ksewa services. Step 2: Click on “Register for Ksewa” option which is under the Ksewa tab. Step 3: On the next page, the registration form will open up you need to fill the registration form with the appropriate details. [caption id="attachment_73892" align="aligncenter" width="588"]

mKisan - Image 1 Step 4: After completing the details click on the “Submit” button to complete the registration under Ksewa.

KCC

The main aim of the KCC is to answer farmers' queries on a telephone call in their language. These call Centres are operating in 14 different locations covering all the States and Union Territories. A countywide common eleven digit Toll-Free number 1800-180-1551 has been allocated for Kisan Call Centre. This number is available through mobile phones and landlines of all telecom networks including private service providers. Replies to the farmers' queries are given in 22 local languages.

Kisan Call Centre Locations

The Kisan call centre locations are available in the following states.

Hyderabad
Patna
Jaipur
Ahmadabad
Chandigarh
Jammu
Banglore
Jabalpur
Pune
Coimbatore
Kanpur
Kolkata
Bhubaneswar
Guwahati

Buyer Seller

Buyer Seller Platform is to associate farmers with the buyers (FPOs, Exporters, Traders, and Processors). Buyer registers on this platform and selects the area from where he wishes to buy the product. He can give the price at which he needs to buy the product. Farmers of that selected location get the SMS on their mobile set. SMS contains the name and mobile number of all buyers and the price which they are offering to buy a commodity.

Buyer/Seller Registration

The Buyer or seller registration can be performed through the mKisan portal, follow the steps specified here. Step 1: Visit the official portal of mKisan to register under buyer or seller services. Step 2: Click on “Seller or Buyer Registration” option which is under the Buyer-Seller tab. Step 3: On the next page, the login page will open up you need to fill the login details form with the appropriate information if you are an existing user. [caption id="attachment_73895" align="aligncenter" width="552"]

mKisan - Image 2 Step 4: If you are a new user, click on “New Registration” link enter your mobile number and click on the “Proceed” button. [caption id="attachment_73896" align="aligncenter" width="520"]

mKisan - Image 3 Step 5: And then you will get an OTP to your registered mobile number to enter the same OTP in the appropriate text box and create the login id to register for Seller or Buyer registration.

Mobile Apps

The mobile Apps to be specified on the mKisan Portal are some excellent applications which are free of cost and do not have any authority or Intellectual Property Right (IPR) issue. The list of apps developed under the mKisan portal is specified below.