Bharti Airtel Limited and Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (Iffco) on Friday formed a joint venture company?Iffco Kisan Sanchar Limited (IKSL)?to provide rural telephony. The new company will offer products and services, specifically designed for farmers, through Iffco societies in villages across the country. The JV is expected to provide a major push to the country?s agriculture and rural economy by providing vital information relating to agriculture via mobile handsets.
IKSL will offer affordable mobile handsets with Airtel mobile connection. The value added services (VAS) platform will be a unique feature of the system, which will offer free daily voice updates on mandi prices, farming techniques, weather forecasts and fertiliser availability. The farmer will also be able to call a dedicated helpline, manned by experts from various fields, to get answers to their specific queries.
Announcing this, Bharti Airtel chairman and MD Sunil Bharti Mittal said, ?The telecom revolution has truly transformed the country and we believe that the benefit must reach the rural population.?
Airtel will offer calling rates at 50 paise per minute for calls between Iffco members. ?We have been constantly endeavoring to enrich the lives of the farmers through creating and strengthening cooperative institutions and providing them the best quality inputs, the mobile technology, however, seems to us a golden opportunity for carrying out this mission, Iffco MD US Awasthi said.