In view of distress sale of paddy and vegetables across Odisha, four techies, including two NRIs from Kalahandi district, have developed a mobile app called ‘ChasiMandi’ to help farmers sell their produces.
A team of four techies led by a Bengaluru-based IT engineer, Sribant Panda, of Kotagaon under Kalampur block in Kalahandi district and his brother IT engineer Srikant Panda, who is settled in the US, his son-in-law Santosh Mishra working in the banking sector in the US and his another son-in-law Subrat Behera, who is a lecturer at Kalahandi’s Koksara College, as other members have successfully developed the mobile app, through which farmers can get registered and update data about their crops.
The ‘ChasiMandi’, the farmer’s digital market for local produce in rural India, was launched in April this year. Such an initiative has created hope among distressed farmers for the first time.
Sribant has started making the farmers aware of the mobile app with help of the BDOs of Kalampur, Junagarh, Dhrmagarh and Koksara in the district through various workshops in these areas.
Sribant, who used to visit his village every year, thought to develop such a mobile app after realising the problems of the farmers for selling their produces.
The ChasiMandi mobile app, a unique initiative to bring both the sellers and buyers in one platform, has become a boon for the farmers in Kalahandi district, Sribant said.