Fertilizer subsidies in India currently account for the second-largest Government transfer, with a yearly estimated outlay of over Rs. 70,000 Crore. Several reforms have been introduced by the government from time to time to improve the distribution of fertilizers across the country for ensuring adequate and timely availability of fertilizers to the farmers.
For effective monitoring of movement of fertilizers upto retailer level, Mobile based Fertilizer Management System (mFMS) was introduced in November 2012 for obtaining receipt of sale transactions from more than 2.20 lakhs retailers through mobile application. Integrated Fertilizer Management System (iFMS) was launched in June 2016 which is a comprehensive, all-inclusive system covering all functionalities in the fertilizer supply chain. The Department of Fertilizers introduced “Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in Fertilizers” scheme for better monitoring of fertilizer sale transactions across the country by capturing the fertilizer sales from retailers to farmers through Aadhaar enabled PoS devices and online subsidy payment to companies on weekly basis and the software solution was enhanced accordingly.
After successful implementation in 16 pilot districts from October 2016 to August 2017, the State-wise roll-out was undertaken from September 2017 onwards and all the States have been on-boarded successfully in March 2018.
The major iFMS modules are: ••Production and Raw Material Management ••Requirement & Supply Plan – State and District Level ••Dispatches from Plant/ Port/ Rake-point to District warehouse/ rake-point/ wholesaler/ retailer and their Receipts ••Sale from company to wholesaler/ retailer and its acknowledgment ••Sale from wholesaler to wholesaler/ retailer and its acknowledgment ••Mobile-based solution for acknowledgement of sale by wholesaler/ retailer ••On Account and Balance Subsidy Payment to fertilizer companies ••Freight subsidy payment to fertilizer companies ••Stock Management at Plant, Port, Rake Point, District Warehouse, Wholesaler and Retailer ••Sale of fertilizers from retailer to farmer through Aadhaar based POS devices ••Paperless processing of weekly subsidy claims for payment to Fertilizer Manufacturers/ Importers through PFMS
BENEFITS OF iFMS ••Real time status on fertilizer stock availability across the country at all stock points ••Effective monitoring of fertilizer movement in fertilizer supply chain to ensure receipt of subsidised fertilizers to the intended beneficiary ••Effective monitoring of fertilizer availability in accordance with the state-wise monthly fertilizer requirement ••Faster processing and payment of subsidy to manufacturer/ importer ••Authentic Fertilizer Dealer database ••Farmer authentication on the basis of Aadhaar/ EPIC/ KCC ••Performance Report with Dashboards
FERTILIZER DASHBOARD (urvarak.nic.in) The Dashboard presents an analytical view of information on all aspects of fertilizer supply chain including sale of fertilizers from retailers to the farmers. The management dashboard depicts the state-wise scenario of availability of fertilizers to help DoF meet the fertilizer requirement of states in an adequately and timely manner. The collective information can also be used as Decision Support System for demand projections of fertilizers on pan India basis.
IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT ••86 Virtual machines/ Servers deployed by NIC to handle DBT system ••15 Seat multilingual call centre cum help-desk setup (Toll Free No: 1800115501) ••Help-desk of 5 (NIC) technical experts ••Technical support on DBT WhatsApp group ••DBT PMU operational at DOF ••Engagement of 24 State DBT Co-ordinators ••Trainings conducted across India ••Bilingual online training videos available on Youtube
HOW TO ACCESS Training manuals and videos are available at URL http://mfms.nic.in and for actual data entry, users can visit the https://dbtfert.nic.in/mFMS.