Govt To Revamp Kisan Call Centers With Advanced Communication Technologies Amid Decline In Calls

Amid a decline in calls received at Kisan Call Centres, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Tuesday said his ministry has decided to revamp call centres by using advanced technologies to provide contextually relevant and customised technical solutions to farmers.
    
Tomar, in his written reply to the Lok Sabha, said advanced communication tools like a chatbot, video calling, two-way video/audio clips, two-way SMS, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) based Decision Support Systems (DSS) will be used to support real-time response to farmers' queries. 
    
As per the data shared with the Lok Sabha, the number of calls received at Kisan Call Centers declined to 35.22 lakh in 2022-23 from 47.87 lakh in 2021-22. The number of calls received stood at 58.38 lakh in 2020-21.
    
The number of answered calls was 33.53 lakh in 2022-23 against 45.81 lakh in 2021-22 and 54.74 lakh in 2020-21. Whereas the number of unanswered calls was 1.69 lakh in 2022-23, 2.06 lakh in 2021-22, and 3.64 lakh in 2020-21, the data showed.
    
Highlighting the likely benefits that would accrue to the farmers by the implementation of the changes in the functioning of the Kisan Call Centers, the minister said farmers can get real-time customised technical solutions to queries/problems by receiving farm advisories through the voice tech tools/features during crop growing seasons with customised voice messages and audio and video clips related to technologies, pest and disease control, market intelligence and weather information.
    
Farmers can also send photographs of field problems and make video calls with the Farm Tele Advisors (FTAs) at KCC and get solutions for their field problems.
    
Besides, farmers can get information about various schemes/programmes run by Central, State, and UT governments for the benefit of farmers and express the issues and problems related to the schemes/programmes, Tomar added.