The Agriculture Ministry on Thursday joined hands with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), a wing of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), to geo-tag agricultural assets.

Besides, ponds, crop area, warehouses, laboratories would also be geo-tagged for their real-time monitoring and effective utilisation.

The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY) of the Agriculture Ministry and NRSC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard here.

Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh told the media here the move would help bring transparency in governance due to real-time monitoring and utilisation of agricultural assets.

"At present, officials provide information on the assets manually, so there is no transparency. Geo-tagging will provide us realistic status of assets, which will not only help in monitoring and utilising but also be extremely useful in formulating schemes for development in the agricultural sector," Radha Mohan Singh said.

"It will also help in avoiding duplication," he added.

The minister also said the actual details of water sources and availability would help to prepare the contingency plan in a better manner.

Singh said the utilisation of space technology would help farmers get access to pesticide testing labs, storage infrastructure, and market-related information.

"Space technology needs to be developed in the areas such as land resource mapping, pesticides management, soil health mapping, crop yield estimation as well as identification and assessment of flood-like calamities, inland fisheries, animal species identification and sheep rearing," Singh said.

Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Atomic Energy and Space Development, who was also present during the MoU signing, said geo-tagging would ensure effective disbursements of money to over one crore intended beneficiaries.