JEYPORE: With paddy procurement beginning for Kharif, instances of fake farmers registering names to sell their produce have come to the fore. Of 38,706 farmers who had registered to sell paddy in different PACS in Koraput, 1,465 names were found ineligible and their names were struck off the list.
The nexus came to light after the district administration used remote sensing application following allegations of fake farmer registrations. Inspection of around 6,000 suspected plots using satellite images to locate paddy and non-paddy plantations led to the revelation that 1,465 registrations were fake.
Subsequently, the district civil supplies office and deputy registrar of cooperative societies in Jeypore blocked the farmers and removed their names from the PACS procurement process. Koraput has successfully detected the second-highest number of bogus farmers in the State during this season, next only to Bargarh, said Collector Md Abdaal Akhtar.
“We hope that such detections through OCACs remote sensing app would help genuine farmers who have been deprived of facilities and bring transparency into the system,” he added. Last year, about 34,939 farmers had registered to participate in the Kharif paddy procurement process.