New Delhi, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched a mobile app for farmers on Friday to help farmers & traders in searching transport vehicles for transporting their agriculture & horticulture produce, amid the nationwide lockdown.

Terming it 'Kisan Rath', Tomar said the app would enable farmers in getting both primary transportation which is from farms to mandis, FPO Collection Centre and warehouses etc. and secondary transportation which would mean from mandis to processing units, railway stations, warehouses, for their produce.

While harvesting and sowing is going on, transportation was a concern for many. This app is developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to fill this void. This App is expected to facilitate farmers, FPOs and cooperatives in the country to have the choice to find a suitable transport facility to transfer their agriculture produce from farm gate to markets.

While farm produce can range from foodgrain (cereal, coarse cereal, pulses etc), fruits & vegetables to oil seeds, spices, fiber crops, flowers, bamboo and even coconuts, this App can get farmers and traders the befitting transportation. For instance some are perishable commodities which would need refrigerated vehicles and the app can help connect the farmers with one.

But how does it actually work? A government release elaborates: "The Consignors (farmer, FPOs, buyer/ trader) places a requirement for transportation on this app which is disseminated to transport aggregators in the market, who in turn interface with various truckers and fleet owners for obtaining a competitive quote against the requirement and passes back the quote and trucker details to the Consignor. Thereafter, the Consignor directly negotiates off line with the trucker and finalizes the deal.:

Tomar's deputy Parshottam Rupala was also present during the launch.