Digital India towards Development of Agriculture and Rural Development: An Overview

It has been estimated that India would need nearly 300 million tones of food grains by 2030. In other words, by the year 2020, we may need about 122million tones of rice, 102million tones of wheat, 41million tones of coarse grains and 28 million tones of pulses, 143million tones of milk. Information Technology and Digital India is involves electronic processing, storage and communication of information, where anything that can be represented in digital form is included in the term information. Macmillan dictionary of IT defines information technology as “the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a micro-electronics based combination of computing and telecommunications”. Everybody knows that agriculture is the mainstay of Indian economy. More than 55 percent of the country's populations still depend on agriculture. As of 2011, rural areas host 742 million or over 55 percent of population. About 55 percent of India's total workforce is rural. Indian agriculture has surpassed many obstacles and successfully moved from the status of being a self deficient country to a self sufficient one in food grains as well as in several other sectors of agriculture. But there are threats of this achievement being soon gaped down by the monstrous growth of population. It is well accepted fact that future is going to be an information age where nation's prosperity will depend on its ability to process information. IT has connected the world globally and is now changing our lifestyle and social consciousness dynamically. Of late, it has emerged as a best tool for information sharing and mutual communication. Agriculture and rural sector have also been greatly influenced by IT in the present era, but the share of IT in agriculture is only 1.7percent. Agriculture is still the back bone of Indian economy. More than 65 percent of the population lives in rural areas. Agriculture and rural sector plays a very important role for the development of the country. So there is a great need to collaborate IT with agriculture. Information Technology involves electronic processing, storage and communication of information, where anything that can be represented in digital form is included in the term information. Macmillan dictionary of IT defines information technology as “the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a micro-electronics based combination of computing and telecommunications”.