Govt to begin farmer registration for Aadhaar-style IDs from October

In a major push towards digitising the agriculture sector, the government will soon begin registration of farmers across the country to provide them with a unique ID similar to Aadhaar, Agriculture Secretary Devesh Chaturvedi said on Monday.

Chaturvedi, speaking to PTI on the sidelines of an Outlook Agri-Tech Summit and Swaraj Awards, said the guidelines for the registration process will be issued soon, with the implementation set to begin in the first week of October.

"Our target is to register five crore farmers by March next year," the secretary said, noting that the initiative is part of the government's Rs 2,817-crore Digital Agriculture Mission approved by the Cabinet recently.

A pilot project was earlier conducted in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and 19 states have already onboarded the project, he said.

Once the farmers' registry is created, an "Aadhaar-like unique ID" will be provided to each registered farmer.

Chaturvedi said the unique ID will help farmers access vario