Postal department to help farmers sell their produce online

News:

• India’s postal department is set to launch a pilot programme that seeks to help farmers sell their produce over the Internet, that too without spending a paisa on transport.
• The plan is to deploy postmasters in villages to collate details from farmers on their produce and upload the data online for traders to peruse and make decisions.
•  Under the new project, postmasters will use smartphones to take photos of the farm commodities and upload the details on a website that will act as a trading platform.
• The idea of launching an agri-commodity trading platform was arrived at as part of India Post’s asset maximisation strategy wherein it plans on improving revenue from its existing human and physical assets, including logistics network.
• Aimed at encouraging the postmasters in villages to participate in the new initiative and help improve revenue, the department is devising a special incentives package and increasing the fleet size based on demand.
• The department expects to cover at least a third of these states and is targeting a minimum Rs 10 crore in revenue from agri commodity trading in the first year.
  Source: ET