Telangana Govt project conferred with Gold Icon at Digital India Awards 2022

Hyderabad, Jan 7 :Telangana Government on Saturday announced that their project Smart Nutrient Management of Soil has won the Gold Icon Award at the Digital India Awards 2022 in the category ‘Digital Initiatives in collaboration with Start-ups’. This category has been introduced in the Digital India Awards for the first time.
The Government of India has envisioned the Digital India Awards to encourage and honour innovative digital initiatives by government entities at all levels. It aims to recognize and award the best grassroots level digital initiatives in fulfilling the Digital India vision. Under the category “Digital Initiatives in collaboration with Start-ups”Digital India Program has identified and conferred the awards to the projects that displayed excellence by Government Entities in collaboration with Start-ups for enhancement or transformation of digital governance, improving the experience of digital services and digital empowerment of citizens– fulfilling Digital India Vision.
The award was conferred by the President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu in the presence of the Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, Communications and Railways, Ashwini Vaishnawat Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, a statement here said.
Smt L Rama Devi, Director of Emerging Technologies Wing, Information Technology, Electronics& Communications Department along with Sudheer Kumar Jindam, Senior Consultant, Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department and Sandeep Kondaji, CEO & Co-Founder Krishitantra attended the Digital India Awards Ceremony to receive the Gold Icon on behalf of the Government of Telangana. ITE&C Department and Agriculture Department, Government of Telangana along with Krishitantra have built a completely automated portable soil testing solution named Krishi RASTAA- Rapid Automated Soil Testing with Agronomy Advisory. Krishi RASTAA provides soil reports to farmers in 30 minutes and issues advisories to farmers on the optimum use of fertilizers and micronutrients. Telangana IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao said, “Government of Telangana has always been in the forefront of enabling and driving the use of frontier technologies in several sectors. The 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.”
Raghunandan Rao, Secretary, Agriculture & Co-Operation Department, Government of Telangana said,” Healthy soil provides many functions that support plant growth, including nutrient cycling, biological control of plant pests, and regulation of water and air supply. Soil testing labs can help farmers understand these nuances about their farm soil to better plan their agriculture.
But, in India there are very few soil testing labs. However, the Government of Telangana has taken this initiative to tackle this challenge and help farmers with robust soil testing reports and advisories.
The state is fully committed to adoption of new age technologies to support the agriculture sector and this is a step in the same direction”, he added.