BSNL has soft-launched ‘Mandi on Mobile’ service in UP – the service enables farmers to call up the BSNL number and ask for the rate of any vegetable, grain, pulse or fruit in any mandi across the state.
The farmer is required to simply name the product and the district and he will be told the tehsil-wise rates.
There are 108 items of ranging from grains, pulses, fruit and vegetables, daily rates of which from any of our 247 mandis, can be availed by dialing this number and by following the simple voice command – source
What’s important to note is that the entire software works on voice-command, – so essentially, OnMobile is testing it’s voice recognition engine (OnMobile acquired Telisma SA, France based voice recognition player).
It seems the service is free now and will be monetized on subscription basis later.
Reuters (RML) too has implemented a similar concept in Punjab
It is really a nice step. I hope government also provide adequate infrastructure so that farmers could sell their vegetables and grains where they want to.
I believe there are better monetization techniques than subscription. Not sure how the targeted customers like farmers will welcome the subscription model. They can follow the model which Free411 is using in the US.
Pingback: Nokia Life Tools for the Indian Rural Market |Technology and Business Startups in India