By Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: As the State Government is readying for procurement of rabi paddy, the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare department has been asked to link registration of farmers with Aadhaar numbers to eliminate fake farmers.
The State level procurement committee meeting chaired by Chief Secretary G C Pati on Saturday reviewed the paddy procurement during last kharif season and preparedness of the agencies for procurement of rabi paddy.
“Rabi procurement will start in next two-three days in all the mandis and the number of operating days will be extended to six days a week,” Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Secretary M S Padhi told reporters after the meeting.
It has been decided that fresh farmers’ registration for the ensuing kharif season will be done by banks and primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACs) at the time of advancing crop loans. As many as 7,82,917 farmers for kharif and 1,55,493 for rabi have been registered online, Padhi said.
The Paddy Procurement Automation System (P-PAS) has successfully been implemented in 60 high procuring blocks in last kharif season. This is a web-based application in which all transactions at mandis are done through computer, both in online and offline modes.
Around 46 per cent of the total paddy procured has been transacted through this automated system and around 2,28,816 farmers have benefited out of it, he said.
It has been decided to extend the system to 160 blocks during coming kharif procurement while the P-PAS will be applied in 36 blocks of 12 high procuring districts for rabi procurement of paddy.
“Chief Secretary has directed to undertake a study to assess the satisfaction level of farmers with P-PAS system and collect inputs from them for further improvement,” Padhi said.
Responding to a query, Padhi said paddy procurement during 2014-15 kharif grew by 21 per cent over previous kharif marketing season (KMS) with a total procurement of around 40 lath tonnes.
There has been 65 per cent growth in delivery of custom mill rice over the last year by this time. Around 14.84 lakh tonnes of rice have already been delivered to Food Corporation of India (FCI) and rice collection centres (RCCs).
Issues relating to collection of rice from millers, creation of new rake points in railway, modernisation of existing rice mills and establishment of new rice mills in deficient districts were discussed in the meeting.
The Chief Secretary directed all Revenue Division Commissioners to review progress of recovery of rice from millers and initiate criminal action against defaulting millers.