Bhubaneswar: To ensure smooth conduct of paddy procurement, the State Government has decided to look after each Mandi in the State jointly during the upcoming Kharif Marketing Season 2024-25.
Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Principal Secretary Vir Vikram Yadav and Cooperation Secretary Rajesh Prabhakar Patil have jointly issued a circular to all Collectors in this regard very recently.
In the letter, the secretaries said that the Government is giving top priority to streamline the paddy procurement centers (Mandis) this KMS.
It was noticed in the past that there have been many allegations by farmers during procurement in mandis across the State. These allegations are coming mostly due to unsupervised or less supervised procurement operations and not ensuring quality testing of the paddy that arrives in mandis, they said.
This problem can be dealt with technological interventions and ensuring procurement operations under supervised conditions strictly as per the operational guidelines issued by Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department.
The Cooperation Department is taking steps to provide latest automatic or manual testing equipment to all the Mandis as per the volume of arrival of paddy to ensure and expedite FAQ testing, the Senior Officers said.
To ensure that quality testing of paddy of all farmers is done and procurement operations are carried out as per the guidelines, it has been decided that responsible government officers will be appointed as Mandi Supervising Officers and Mandi Nodal Officers for all the mandis.
As per the letter, for each PPC/mandi there will be a Mandi Nodal Officer (MNO) in the ranks of Revenue Inspector (RI), Marketing Inspector, Inspector of Cooperative Societies, VAW, PEO and other Block Extension Officers. They will remain present all along in the PPCs during procurement.
Further, for supervision of the Mandi Nodal Officers and over all procurement process, one senior officer in the rank of Tehsildar, Additional Tehsildar, BDO, ABDO, DRCS, senior ARCS, ARCS, DSWO, CCSO, CSO and ACSO to be appointed as Mandi Supervising Officers (MSO) for 4/5 mandis.
This arrangement will ensure that procurement operations are carried out under supervised conditions, they said.
In this context, the Collectors have been asked to do adequate planning in advance and identify officers in the ranks mentioned above to act as MNOs and MSOs.
They were further advised to have a round of preparatory meeting with the officials of Cooperation, FS&CW and other concerned Departments immediately and identify suitable officers for this purpose so that procurement operation can be carried out smoothly as per the plan of Government.