Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has launched an e-Crop Survey across the state, to be implemented jointly by the department of revenue and agriculture and Tata Trusts from August 15.

The e-Crop Survey is aimed at increasing the income of farmers through the ‘Vickel to Pickel’ campaign. Farmers will be able to register their crops on their own and avail crop loans and crop insurance. The project will understand each crop pattern area by village taluka and district.

“We have already introduced digitized 7/12 document which is an extract from the Land Register that the farmers can now access on their mobile phones. We are happy that with the help of technology we are emphasizing on reducing the hardships of the farmers by doing new experiments as well as providing them with the required documents in a simple and easy way and  getting information about the crops. This collective effort will now help alleviate the suffering of our farmer brothers,” Thackeray said on Friday.

He said that due to unpredictable weather, heavy rains and sometimes due to lack of rain crops are damaged and government faces many difficulties in compensating the farmers as it is difficult to conduct Panchnama at that time. But the digital system will help the farmers.

While implementing the concept of ‘Vickel to Pickle’ across the state, it is necessary to create a brand of one district, one crop by recognising the characteristics of each district. Efforts need to be made to ensure that the vegetables grown by the farmers can last for more days in the future. In the next 15 days farmers in the state will be given training on how to register their crops on the app.

The project was earlier carried out in two districts of Maharashtra along with Tata Trusts on pilot basis.