SRINAGAR: The Daksh Kisan portal, an online learning and skill development platform launched by the Agriculture Production Department of Jammu and Kashmir, has remained inaccessible for nearly a month, causing distress among farmers and aspiring agri-entrepreneurs across the Kashmir Valley.
The portal, designed as a comprehensive Learning Management System offering more than one hundred training modules on agriculture, horticulture, livestock and allied sectors, has been widely promoted under initiatives such as Kisan Sampark Abhiyan. However, farmers say the website has not opened for several weeks, displaying connection timeout errors and preventing them from accessing lessons and certificates crucial to ongoing training.
Several farmers expressed concern over the prolonged outage. “We were regularly taking courses on integrated farming and disease management, but the portal has been out of order for almost a month now. None of us in the village is able to log in,” said Abdul Rashid from Pulwama.
Another user from Bandipora shared similar frustration. “The department encouraged us to learn through this online system. Now we are stuck halfway through our modules. This downtime has affected our planning for the next season,” said Muhammad Yousuf, who has been enrolled in multiple courses on vegetable cultivation.
Agriculture workers and young learners said the disruption has created difficulties for those preparing for skill certification and departmental training evaluations. Many complained that despite repeated attempts, the platform continues to show the message “This site cannot be reached,” leaving them uncertain about when services will resume.
The Daksh Kisan portal was launched to make modern agricultural knowledge accessible to farmers, offering courses in multiple languages and issuing certificates upon completion. Users said the outage has defeated the purpose of skill-building at a crucial time when farmers rely heavily on updated techniques and advisory content.
Farmers appealed to the Agriculture Production Department to restore the portal at the earliest and ensure uninterrupted access, especially as many depend on the digital platform for capacity building. [KNT]
