Telangana wins Gold Icon Award for soil testing tool

Hyderabad: The Telangana government's 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 Centre has envisioned the Digital India awards to encourage and honour innovative digital initiatives by government entities at all levels. The Union Government has envisioned the Digital India Awards to encourage and honour innovative digital initiatives by government entities at all levels. President Droupadi Murmu presented the award.

Telangana IT and Agriculture departments along with Krishitantra had developed automated portable soil testing solution named Krishi RASTAA- Rapid Automated Soil Testing with Agronomy Advisory provides soil reports to farmers in 30 minutes and issues advisories to farmers on the optimum use of fertilizers and micronutrients. The soil advisory analysis done under this project facilitates efficient use of farming inputs thus increasing production and income while lowering soil degradation.

IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao congratulated the official team for taking up the project.

He said the 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, he added.

Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary ITE&C and Industries, who received the award, said in the true spirit of open innovation and collaboration, Government of Telangana has been working with several start-ups in various domains including but not limited to agriculture, healthcare, environment, and mobility to encourage the adoption of transformative tech-based solutions which are designed to impact our people and planet positively.