Bhubaneswar: Principal Secretary, Food Supply and Consumer Welfare Vir Vikram Yadav has said that Interactive Voice Recording System (IVRS) would be set up to handle farmers’ queries regarding registration and procurement.
A dedicated toll free number 1967 had been set up for receiving the telephonic grievances of the farmers.
This cell would be enlarged with multiple call receiving facilities; and, utmost care would be taken to redress the grievances within 24 hours of the registration.
Mr.Yadav was briefing the District Collectors about the Grievance Redressal Mechanism set in place for smooth Paddy Procurement during Kharif Season.
Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra chaired the Video Meet attended by the District Collectors.
Review showed that distribution of the registration forms to the farmers was started from 15 July, 2021. This year’s registration would not be a mere renewal of the old. It would be complete new registration. It was decided that 16 August would be the last date for submission and registration of forms at the primary cooperative societies (PACS). The field verification would be completed by 7 September 2021. Digitized data updating by the PACs would be completed by 18 September. The master list of all the genuine farmers and sharecroppers would be generated by 30 September, 2021.
Further, Principal Secretary Mr.Yadav appraised that a total number17,32,948 farmers were registered, and, a total quantity of 77,32,762 MT paddy was procured during KMS of 2020-21. For KMS 2021-22, around 2,857 societies were enlisted by 15 July through whom farmer’s registration was started. By end of July, 1.74 lakh farmers were registered afresh for KMS 2021-22.
Chief Secretary Mr.Mahapatra said “No genuine farmer should be deprived from selling paddy to Government during Kharif marketing season (KMS) 2021-22”.
Reviewing the district wise progress of farmers’ registration for Khariff procurement season of 2021-22, Mr.Mahapatra directed the collectors to form sufficient number of joint verification teams involving the field level officers from the departments of Agriculture & farmer’s empowerment, Cooperation, Revenue & disaster management and Water resources for hundred percent field verification of the actual farmers and their crop area. He directed to prepare the final list all the genuine farmers for paddy procurement by weeding out the possibilities of fake crop area registration, and, sealing the scope for the entry of unscrupulous middlemen into the system.
Emphasizing importance of the field verification in the entire process of procurement, Mr.Mahapatra directed to conduct it with all sincerity and accuracy.
It was decided in the meeting that the field verification would be combined with verification of actual land record, land category (kisam), crop area, type and source of irrigation, bank details, mobile number of the farmers etc.
The paddy cultivated area would also be cross verified with satellite data collected through ORSAC. After registration and field verification, SMS would be sent to the farmers regarding the extent of the cultivated land registered for procurement. Payment to the farmers would be done through their bank accounts, and, all payment would be integrated with online public financial management system (PFMS).
