Page 46 - Covid Special Issue

CSIR’s Kisan Sabha App connected
farmers to supply chain
In order to curb down the spread of COVID-19, India had to impose lockdown in several phases. But it threatened the agriculture sector as the lockdown overlapped with the time of harvest. Farmers were looking for help in taking their produce to the market, as also in procuring seeds, fertilizer, etc. from the market. A robust supply chain management was urgently required to facilitate the timely delivery of the produce at the best possible prices.
The Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), a CSIR lab, came up with an app called Kisan Sabha to resolve the problems related to agricultural supply chain. The App was remotely launched by the Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), Dr Trilochan Mohapatra. The primary objective of Kisan Sabha was to connect farmers to supply chain and freight transportation management system.
Dr Mohapatra complimented CSIR for developing this App as a one-stop solution for farmers, transporters and other entities engaged in the agriculture sector. He also suggested that ICAR can work together with CSIR and use the wide network of Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) in the country for implementation.
Website link:
https://vigyanprasar.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/Vigyan-Samachar-CSIR-News-1-01MAY2020.pdf
CSIR launched ‘AarogyaPath’, a portal to strengthen healthcare
supply chain
CSIR launched AarogyaPath, a web-based solution for the healthcare supply chain, which provided real-time availability of critical supplies. AarogyaPath served manufacturers, suppliers, and customers through the web portal https://www.aarogyapath.in.
The COVID-19 pandemic posed a situation of national health emergency, leading to severe disruption in the supply chain. In particular, the ability to produce and deliver the critical items was compromised due to a variety of reasons. The integrated public platform, named AarogyaPath, was developed with the vision of “providing a path which leads one on a journey towards Aarogya (healthy life)” to address the challenges related to the supply of essential healthcare goods.
This platform provided a single-point source for key healthcare goods, which could help customers in tackling a number of routinely experienced issues. The issues included dependence on limited suppliers, time-consuming processes to identify good quality products, limited access to suppliers who can supply standardized products at reasonable prices within desired timelines, lack of awareness about the latest product launches, etc.
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