ISLAMABAD (PRESS RELEASE)
Telenor Pakistan, one of the country’s foremost telecom and digital services providers, and Inbox Business Technologies, a leading provider of technologies ensuring business agility in the digital age, continue to collaboratively lead the way in digitizing the agriculture sector of Punjab. The two organizations, working to achieve a shared mission of digital inclusion in Pakistan, joined hands to launch the Connected Agriculture Platform Punjab (CAPP) in December 2017, as part of the Government of Punjab’s ‘Empowerment of Kissan through Digital & Financial Inclusion’ initiative.
Under CAPP, a set of digital applications were launched in Urdu, Punjabi & Saraiki including CAPP Registration, Zarrai Mushwara, Zarrai Jantri, Mukaami Mosam and Kisaan TV. While additional applications such as Crop Calculator, Subsidy, Farm Supplies, and Mandi applications are under development and will be rolled out in coming months.
As part of the CAPP program, 110,000 plus eligible farmers will get 3G/4G enabled smartphones along with free SIMS and data bundles in the first phase. furthermore, Telenor and Inbox are jointly developing several of the critical applications and have established 72 fixed & mobile facilitation centers and booths in 36 Districts of Punjab to train and facilitate the farmers on application usage, as well as a call center to support farmers along with an ongoing ‘Most Connected Farmer (MCF)’ program to encourage farmers on how to maximize benefits from the digital platform. CAPP’s results so far have been very encouraging. In the first two months alone, farmers have held over half a million sessions on the app with an average session length of over 40 minutes. Almost 20,000 farmers have registered on CAPP with over 200 more joining daily.
Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Bilal Kazmi, CMO Telenor Pakistan, said, “Inbox is our strategic partner and has been instrumental in making this program become a reality. We are happy to be collaborating with technology leaders in Pakistan whom we share our social empowerment and digitization goals with.”
He further added that CAPP’s initial results are promising, giving Telenor the satisfaction that its efforts are coming to fruition and that the company is making a positive impact on Pakistan’s agriculture sector which remains the backbone of country’s economy and the key source of livelihood for millions of associated households.
Sharing his thoughts on the collaboration for CAPP, Mr. Mir Nasir, CEO Inbox Technologies, said, “The platform is revolutionizing the agriculture value chain in Pakistan. We have taken a user experience centric approach for the digital platform and its applications, enabling the farmer to get easy access to information and at the same time providing extensive visibility to the Department of Agriculture, Punjab. We are seeing more and more farmers getting on board, engaging with the platform and getting the benefits of digital inclusion.”
Lack of reliable information and unpredictable market forces means that there is immense potential for the industry to provide services which supplement growth of Pakistan’s rural segment. This technology-enabled mobile ecosystem built around accurate and timely information and genuine services would result in better farming practices leading to improved yield, water conservation and market-based economic growth and sustainable development which is the need of the hour.
CAPP will be rolled out to millions of farmers across Pakistan over the coming years, bringing critical mass to the digital agriculture revolution in the country and set the standard for using digital solutions to achieve the UN sustainable development goals (SDG’s) in Pakistan.