BHUBANESWAR: The state government has simplified registration process of farmers for paddy procurement in the 2025-26 kharif marketing season (KMS) by allowing them to submit self-declaration form in place of legal heir certificate.
Announcing this at media conference here on Sunday, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare minister Krushna Chandra Patra said the decision was taken to give relief to the farmers who are facing difficulties in arranging required documents for completing the registration process within the stipulated time.
Apart from land-related documents, farmers are required to submit legal heir certificate or genealogy report. For sharecroppers, consent letters from the actual land owners are mandatory for registration.
“We have simplified the registration process to ensure that eligible farmers are not deprived of the benefit of the minimum support price (MSP) and the input assistance provided by the state government under the decentralised paddy procurement. They can now register themselves by submitting a self-declaration form which has been distributed to all districts,” Patra said.
The minister said the department has issued a notification to all district collectors, directing them to implement the new system of self-certification. The last date for registration has been extended to August 25, following requests from farmers who have not been able to complete the process due to want of required documents.
The collectors have been asked to circulate the forms to all primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS), large area multi-purpose cooperative societies (LAMPCS), women self-help groups (WSHGs) and pani panchayats (PPs) for smooth conduct of registration process.
Patra said for every kharif marketing season, July 31 is the last date for registration for sale of surplus paddy under MSP. Earlier, it was extended till August 20.
A total of 13,34,028 farmers have registered as on date against 13,79,066 during corresponding period last year. Even as the kharif marketing season starts from October 1 every year, the paddy procurement operation usually starts from the first week of November which continues till the end of March the following year.