BHUBANESWAR: The State Government on Saturday extended the deadline for online registration of farmers under Paddy Procurement Automation System (P-PAS) for purchase of surplus paddy during the 2019-20 kharif marketing season.
Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS), which have been functioning as ‘One Stop Shop’ to meet the requirements of farmers and procuring paddy on behalf of Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation under decentralised paddy procurement, has registered 6,18,480 lakh farmers under P-PAS as on August 31.
The number of farmers registered by the end of August is only 49 per cent of those registered during the last kharif season. Around 12.59 lakh farmers had registered their names for sale of surplus paddy to Government agencies under under minimum support price (MSP) last year.
“The last date for registration of farmers was August 31. As many farmers have not been able to register their names, the Government decided to extend the deadline till September 10,” said Cooperation Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain.
Sources in the Cooperation department said farmers were busy in kharif cultivation and have hardly any time to spare for registration. The same thing had happened last year.
While the highest number of 1,28,700 farmers from Ganjam district had registered their names last year, a status report of the Cooperation department said only 76,736 farmers have enrolled for sale of their surplus kharif paddy till August this year. In Bargarh district, only 50,207 farmers have registered their names as against 1,04,034 last year.
The Registrar of Cooperative Society has asked Divisional Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Assistant Registrar of Cooperative Societies and Secretaries of District Central Cooperative Banks to complete digitisation of farmers’ registration forms by September 5.
PACS and all offices under the Cooperation department will remain open from September 1 to 3, which have been declared holidays to carry out the digitisation work.