Govt. of Telangana’s project conferred with Gold Icon Award at Digital India Awards 2022

HYDERABAD: Government of Telangana’s project ‘Smart Nutrient Management of Soil’ was awarded the Gold Icon Award at the Digital India Awards 2022 in the category ‘Digital Initiatives in collaboration with Start-ups’ on Saturday. This category has been introduced in the Digital India Awards for the first time. The award was conferred by the President, Droupadi Murmu at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

The ITE&C Department and Agriculture Department, Government of Telangana along with Krishitantra have built a completely automated portable soil testing solution named ‘Krishi RASTAA’ - a rapid automated soil testing with agronomy advisory. The soil advisory analysis done under this project facilitates efficient use of farming inputs thus increasing production and income while lowering soil degradation.

Krishi RASTAA provides soil reports to farmers in 30 minutes and issues advisories to them on the optimum use of fertilizers and micronutrients. These reports and advisories are made available in 3 languages – Telugu, English and Hindi. This project was executed by Krishitantra under the guidance and mentorship of Indian Institute of Rice Research (ICAR IIRR).

Speaking about the honour, Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao said, “Government of Telangana has always been in the forefront of enabling and driving the use of frontier technologies in several sectors. Emerging Technologies Wing has been crucial in the acceleration and adoption of technologies, especially AI and Cloud in the state. Together these technologies become a powerful tool to bring transformation while impacting lives at scale.”

Principal Secretary of ITE, Government of Telangana, Jayesh Ranjan said, “In the true spirit of open innovation and collaboration, Government of Telangana has been working with several start-ups in various domains including agriculture, healthcare, environment and mobility to encourage the adoption of transformative tech-based solutions which are designed to impact our people and planet positively.”

Digital India Awards was envisioned by Government of India to encourage and honour innovative digital initiatives by government entities at all levels.