BHUBANESWAR: AS paddy procurement has been affected due to non-cooperation by agitating secretaries of primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS) and large area multi-purpose cooperative societies (LAMPS), the State Government has directed Regulated Market Committees (RMCs) to take over the procurement operation.As an alternative plan for managing the procurement operation, each of the RMC will provide an employee who will function as purchase officer (PO) and procure paddy from designated paddy purchase centres or mandis of each PACS/LAMPS under its jurisdiction.
This has been instructed to all district Collectors in a letter jointly issued by Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Secretary V V Yadav and Cooperation Secretary Ranjana Chopra.Since paddy purchase from farmers under the decentralised procurement system has been made digital with payment being made directly to farmers’ accounts through P-PAS (Paddy Procurement Automation System), the Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies (DRCS) and Assistant Registrar of Cooperative Societies (ARCS) have been directed to send a list of POs with the approval of district collectors for generation of fresh user ID and password for them.
“Paddy purchase details of different mandis will be captured in offline mode by the POs deputed from the RMCs and the transaction details will be digitised at respective RMCs and uploaded to P-PAS system to ensure online transfer of minimum support price (MSP) to the farmers in time,” sources in the FS&CW Department said.
The RMC secretaries will be held responsible for any discrepancies in uploading purchase data. PACS and LAMPS of a district will be divided into clusters for proper monitoring and supervision of paddy procurement and a supervising officer will be in charge of each cluster.
Civil supplies officers have been directed to ensure that the procured paddy is lifted by the designated custom millers on the same day without fail.
Paddy procurement operations are a time bound activity which are conducted between November and February in Western and Southern Odisha districts while in coastal districts the operation starts from December and continues till April.Secretaries of PACS and LAMPS have been agitating over five-point charter of demands which include pension, medical insurance, government employee status and implementation of 7th Pay Commission recommendations in cooperative societies.