Date:15/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/10/15/stories/2007101550821500.htm

Back This year’s Manthan Award goes to ‘e-Sagu’

Jt venture between IIIT-H, Media Lab Asia

Snapshot
e-Sagu provides personalised professional agro-advice to farmers.
The Manthan Award launched in 2004 is organised annually by Digital Empowerment Foundation

Our Bureau

Hyderabad, Oct. 14 The Manthan Award 2007 for India’s Best e-Content Development was conferred on ‘e-Sagu’, an IT-based agro-advisory system, a joint venture between International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad (IIIT-H) and Media Lab Asia.

The award, given in the e-Enterprise and Livelihood category, offers a boost to help farmers access the right and timely scientific advice at various stages of farming.

Sagu means cultivation in Telugu. eSagu, developed by the IIIT-H, provides personalised professional agro-advice to farmers ranging from pre-sowing operations to post-harvest precautions.

How it works

Founded in March 2004, the operation of eSagu involves a team of farm experts working with the aid of an agricultural information system from the central eSagu station and a network of local eSagu centres, each normally based in an urban area. Each local eSagu centre caters to a set of about 10 villages.

Educated and experienced farmers, known as progressive farmers, are recruited as village eSagu coordinators and stationed in a village. They serve as the critical interface between the farm experts based out of the main eSagu centre at IIIT-H campus and the farmers of his village.

Remotely-located farmers thus get real time access to expert professional help, which helps them save their crops and achieve good return on investment, a press release from IIIT-H said.

Prof P. Krishna Reddy, Chief Investigator of the eSagu project and Head of the Centre for IT in Agriculture, IIIT-H, was also conferred the title “The Fellow of Manthan Award: The e-Content Pathbreakers”, by Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), New Delhi. The Manthan Award launched in 2004 is organised annually by DEF, in partnership with the World Summit on Information Society.