SAMBALPUR: Over 60,000 farmers have registered for kharif paddy procurement in Sambalpur district this year. This kharif season, at least 60,306 farmers have registered in the district. Last year, the number was 56,667. Deputy registrar of cooperative societies Lingaraj Nayak said collection of registration forms from farmers ended on August 25.
The digitisation process will continue till August 31. The final list of farmers eligible for selling their paddy will be published after scrutiny and field verification by September 30. This year, the registration period was fixed from July 15 to August 16, which was later extended twice till August 22 and then to August 25. During this period, at least 55,398 farmers registered through 45 primary agricultural cooperative societies and 4,908 through 15 women self-help groups in the district.
Of the 56,667 farmers who had registered last year, 56,015 were found eligible to sell their paddy after satellite survey and field verification. While the number of farmers who registered for kharif paddy procurement increased this year, farmer leader Ashok Pradhan alleged that the state government was in a hurry to complete the registration process.
“As farmers had started cultivation late this season, we had urged the government to extend the registration window. Initially, the government did not pay any heed to our plea. It agreed to extend the date only after we staged protest twice. The number of registration would have been much higher had the registration process started a bit late,” he claimed. Pradhan further said though kharif farming is underway smoothly now, the harvesting might get delayed this year as farmers started cultivation late.