Leading service provider Bharti Airtel and IFFCO tie-up bagged the ‘Best Content Service’ as well as the ‘Best Project Management’ at the World Communications Awards held at London. The first award was for the Airtel IFFCO Farmer Information Dissemination platform while the other was for the Gujarat E-GRAM project.

While bestowing the award on Airtel IFFCO Farmer Information Dissemination platform it was felt that the service was innovative and provided the rural consumers granular information regarding their livelihood requirements, said Airtel. As part of the service, 5 free voice messages are offered to the farmers providing them information on mandi prices, farming techniques, weather forecasts, diary farming, animal husbandry, rural health initiatives and fertiliser availability etc.

The E-GRAM project claims to be the largest e-governance rural connectivity initiative at the village level. In partnership with the Gujarat Government, Airtel had set-up telecom infrastructure by providing a comprehensive VSAT based solution, to connect panchayats and Common Service Centers (CSCs) across 13716 villages in the state to provide cost-effective video, voice and data services in the areas of e-agriculture, e-governance, e-health and e-education to the rural consumers of the state.