Automating for transparency

The sight of farmers performing hectic calculations using their smart phones is not altogether rare these days. And yet when a professor from India’s premier rural management institute tried ensuring transparency the android way he ran into enormous bureaucratic obstacles.

“It took me six months to a year to convince the powers that be,” sighs Prof. MV Durga Prasad, who teaches Operations Research and Supply Chain Management at the Institute of Rural management, Anand (IRMA).

It was some two years ago that Prof. Prasad, who was studying the tomato market in Madanpalle in Andhra Pradesh, spotted the lacunae in the present oral ascending mode of auctioning. Lacking transparency, this method left the door open for ‘mandi’ agents to walk away with a fair killing leaving the poor farmer high and dry.

Having explored the markets in five states extensively Prof. Prasad set about installing an automated tendering process that would ensure transparency to the farmer and fetch him a fair price in the market. Having already authored a pricing model for agricultural commodities he now devised a system with the help of internet-based web applications.

Prof. Durga Prasad: The man behind the automation model

“The process is pretty uncomplicated,” beams the IRMA professor, “since the software is user-friendly.” All the farmer has to do is    register the number of units (crates) at their disposal and enter a minimum expected price of their goods. The buyers, on their part, enter a maximum quoted price even as the commission agent quotes a base price. All this is done over the web space.

“Having spoken to many farmers in states as widespread as Punjab, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh,” says the senior academician, “I realized that they were unhappy and dissatisfied with the opaqueness of the current system.”

Prof. Prasad has submitted proposals to various markets and even conducted a workshop to that effect at IRMA recently.  How soon the government will respond is the big question.