NITI Aayog and Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals limited (GNFC) have signed the Statement of Intent (“SOI”) to work together towards implementing a Proof-of-Concept (“PoC”) application using blockchain technology for fertiliser subsidy management.
Under the SOI the parties would undertake joint research, interactions, exchange learnings, and disseminate learnings across their networks. Insights and outcomes of the POC will enable NITI Aayog to suggest policy recommendations and actions in strengthening the subsidy mechanism, making it more transparent and immune to leakages.
Fertilizer units manufacture approximately 31 Million MT of fertilizers across country, where total approximately Rs 70,000 crores of subsidy is disbursed to the manufacturing units.
The current system of fertilizer sales and distribution is multilayer, multi-agency and multi-functional. This process also requires authentication from multiple entities, overall it takes 2 to 3 months’ time.
With adoption of Blockchain Technology, it is expected that the distribution will become effective and efficient, and subsidy transfer would be automated and made real time.
The system will also be integrated with soil card in the next phase, which will be usefulin advising farmers to use a particular type of fertilizer based on soil heath.