Sadhan Chanda Gorai of Bhojda village of Bankura district is a sincere and dedicated farmer who always dreamt of excelling in agriculture and inland fisheries. He regularly uses toll free helpline number and voice SMS of RFIS. With the help of RFIS toll free number, he saved his potato and chickpeas crop from pest attack. He also saved his fishes from diseases by better management of fish pond. While RFIS weather advisory is helping him take better decisions in the area of crop planning and management.
To excel in the field of inland fishery, Sadhan Chanda Gorai formed a 10 member’s fishery group in the village couple of years back in the name of Bhojda Agradoot Samanbay Samiti. They procured one community pond of 33 bigha in the village on lease and were engaged in pisciculture activity. Last year, Sadhan Chanda Gorai observed some dark red spots in the body of the rohu fishes and got concern about the reason behind this outcome. He immediately got in touch with RF fishery expert by calling in the toll free helpline number and shared the issue over phone and forwarded few images of the fishes in whatsapp. Based on RF experts’ advice he applied the prescribed medicines in the pond and got to experience good result within couple of weeks. With the support of RFIS platform his group produced 375 Kgs of rohu fish in their 33 bigha pond and made a profit of around Rs 75,000/- in the season. The fishes produced are being sold locally and in local market. He also attended one multi location audio conference on Govt. Insurance Scheme for Fisherman to know about further scope of improvement & strengthen his fishery intervention.
In the field of agriculture also, he is receiving technical support right from bed preparation to transplanting & harvesting through various platforms of RFIS which boost his production & help him overcome hurdles of pests & insects. He dialled the toll free number to get rid of pest infection in his chickpeas plants spread across 2 Bigha of land. Following the prescribed suggestions of the expert, he overcome the issue and went on to produce 180 Kgs of chickpeas from his 2 Bigha of land and received Rs 10, 800/- by selling it in local market. In the same way, his potato cultivation was also got affected and he got a solution through RF agriculture expert and went on to produce 1400 Kgs of potato in 5 Kathas of land and got a return of around Rs 8,000/-.
He is a regular user of whatsapp group of Bankura Krishi RFIS group which also consists of 257 farming community members. He along with 23 other farmers of his village are registered for voice and text message services of Reliance Foundation and are confident of getting rich dividend in coming days out of this Information Service.
He believe that if farming is taken up with proper technical support & knowledge, it is quite productive. He also added that he never imagined that one day all his queries related to farming will be addressed at his doorstep just by dialling the helpline number 18004198800 free of cost. He expressed his gratefulness to Reliance Foundation for all kinds of support and encouragement extended to him and advocates farmers of his circle to use the power of digitalized services.
Data source – Pradip Panda
Translation – Swapnam Sen (swapnam@krishijagran.com)
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