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From desktop to laptop to tablets to mobile phones, we have moved the whole gamut from desktop to mobility, said Sanjay Bhoosreddy, Additional Chief Secretary, Excise & Sugar Industry Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh at the Elets Future Ready Bharat – Digital Governance Summit, Lucknow.

Highlighting the importance of technology, Sanjay Bhoosreddy, Additional Chief Secretary, Excise & Sugar Industry Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh said that from desktop to laptop to tablets to mobile phones, we have moved the whole gamut from desktop to mobility. “The technology has shown its best usage in COVID, when there was nothing else other than technology to depend upon. Uttar Pradesh was the one state which had decided not to close down its industry during the national lockdown. We decided that all our 120 sugar mills would continue against the backdrop of national lockdown,” he said.

Bhoosreddy said that even now, the majority of people in the public and private sector are into basic computing. “We have not even reached five per cent of the total potential of softwares like Microsoft Excel. But slowly, we are using it in a big way, the way it should be used for managing big volumes of data, data mining,” he said.

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Talking about a portal ‘caneup.in’, Bhoosreddy said that it is a very sophisticated software. “There are five modules behind working at the backend of this portal and all 60 lakh farmers are connected with it. They can see every operation round the year, starting from sowing to their survey.”

Sharing details about the survey, Bhoosreddy said, “Every year, we have to survey the plots of the farmers, and see what variety they have grown, how much cane they have grown, because agriculture is a seasonal and a rotational operation. One year they’ve to grow cane, then for agronomical practices they’ve to grow paddy and wheat. The entire survey, from transfer of data from the handheld computer device to my server, was digital.”

Talking about digital literacy in rural UP, he said, “Of all 60 lakh farmers, 45 to 46 lakh farmers are supplying cane every year and you will be surprised that last year, it was 46.45 lakh farmers and my app downloads is 46 plus lakhs. So each and every sugarcane farmer in UP is IT literate.”

Bhoosreddy also talked about a software by the excise department, called Track and Trace, to get the perfect liquor, which is not adulterated. “The moment a sugar cane is crushed, juice is produced, sugar is produced, molasses is produced. Now we also make alcohol with the help of paddy or potato or any other material. The moment the alcohol or the molasses is made and produced, we track that drop to see there is no pilferage of liquor.”

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Bhoosreddy further said that the sugarcane app does a business of Rs 35,000-36,000 crore per annum and that money goes into the pocket of the sugarcane farmer. “Last year on 31st March, the excise department software earned a revenue of Rs 36, 321 crore. The excise and sugarcane portal together earn more than Rs 72,000 crore. We put Rs 35,000-36,000 in the pocket of 46 lakh sugarcane farmers,” he concluded.

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