Farmer Gurdev Singh Khatkar (71) from Fatehgarh Sahib’s village Lallon Khurd had reached the Khanna grain market, the area’s greatest, with 400 quintals of harvested wheat on Sunday. Two days in a while Tuesday, he waited with no readability on when his crop shall be auctioned. Not far-off, Munim (accountant) Gurmit Singh, who has been within the career for previous 25 years, was busy attending a “class” about working the federal government portal and full registrations for the DBT scheme.
At the Khanna grain market, there have been numerous different farmers like Gurdev who waited in a state of confusion as arhtiyas and their munims struggled with updating farmers’ particulars on authorities’s Anaaj Kharid portal to generate the OTP required to kickstart the public sale course of.
Majority of arhtiyas contained in the mandi stated that they now deliberate to rent a pc together with an operator as they neither have computer systems nor accountants educated to run them.
Both farmers and the arhtiyas blamed the brand new DBT system for the chaos.
In the sooner system, report of farmers’ crop was maintained manually in a ‘Boli’ register after which From J (sale bill of the crop) and Form ‘I’ (carrying particulars of fee quantity to farmers) have been additionally crammed manually. This was adopted by arhtiyas presenting the invoice to the federal government, with the following step being the quantity getting transferred to them (arhtiyas’ accounts) to be additional transferred to farmers by way of cheques. But the DBT system requires particulars — farmers’ title, cell quantity, tackle, checking account quantity, a cancelled cheque, approximate weight of the crop for procurement — being added to the Anaaj Kharid portal.
Further, the wheat selection, title of the acquisition company, the go quantity for entry within the mandi are required to be talked about on-line on the portal to generate an OTP on the farmers’ cell that’s added by the arhtiyas on the portal to complete the registration course of. It is barely in spite of everything this that public sale of crop can happen and remaining weight of the crop added to the portal after it has been bagged and weighed.
Farmer Gurjeet Singh Rajewal (40) from the village Rajewal, who was sitting subsequent to Gurdev Singh, stated that he too introduced his crop late to the mandi due to the gradual strategy of the registration on the portal.
Farmers Sukhjeet Singh from village Saluadi Singha with 200 quintals of wheat and farmer Hardeep Singh of village Shehazadpur with 300 quintals of the crop too have been sitting contained in the mandi for the previous two days. Both of them, nevertheless, have been relieved as their registration course of lastly bought accomplished on Tuesday.
Munim Gurmeet Singh (45), in the meantime, stated that he spent an hour over a cellphone name organised by the federal government buy businesses wherein he was taught about downloading of the App to add the farmers’ particulars on the portal for the direct switch of the MSP.
“Around 60 farmers are associated with my arhtiya and today 6 farmers have brought the crop to the mandi and now he has to register them on the portal so that auction of their crops could be done tomorrow,” he stated.
Gurdev identified that earlier when farmers used to return to mandi with crops they used to get the public sale finished on the identical day and whole particulars would then be talked about in Form ‘J’ and Form ‘I’. But now each arhtiya, who could have round 20 to 200 farmers related to him, has to register these farmers on the portal for direct fee.
“But now technology is coming in the way of farmers and arhtiyas. Majority of munims in the state mandis have not even studied till Class 10, and have no knowledge of computers and uploading farmers details has become a herculean task for them. So, delay in uploading the details is forcing farmers to keep on waiting in the mandis,” stated one other Munim Gurdeep Singh, who’s a graduate and is aware of tips on how to function a pc.
Munim Balwinder Singh (58) stated: “For me computer is an alien device as in my career, I have never used it and now I am worried that my arhtiya would hire a new munim and I will not be able to feed my family of six members.” He added 70 to 80 per cent munim have been like him in Khanna Mandi.
Munim Sanjiv Kumar, who works on the workplace of the biggest arhtiya of mandi, Ajmer Singh, was additionally surrounded by 50 farmers who have been asking him to register them first as they have been ready within the mandi for the previous two days to get their crop auctioned.
Khanna Arhtiya Association President Harbans Singh Rosha stated that there are round 300 arhtiyas in Khanna and surrounding mandis, however 90 per cent of them shouldn’t have computer systems and now they’ve both to rent some pc with operators from exterior or must buy new computer systems first to register the farmers which is able to delay the procurement course of for not less than some days.
He stated that this work ought to have been finished by the federal government from April 1 to April 9 earlier than starting the procurement from April 10. “Today, a class was organised for the munims. But what will they learn in a single day and also when procurement has already started in a big way in the state,” he added.
Arhtiya Jagdeep Singh stated that underneath the direct fee system, authorities has been giving total MSP to the farmers and they’re uncertain that now farmers pays them even labour costs, that are Rs 12.12 paisa per quintal and are borne by farmers for unloading and cleansing of the crop.
“Apart from this, the portal needs modification as there is no option to enter the quantity in kgs as the crop is to be mentioned in the quintals. But it is filled in gunny bags of 50 kg each and if a farmer’s crop is 100 quintal and 45 kg then arhtiyas are asking the farmer to take the crop back,” stated farmer Hardeep Singh.
“Also there is shortage of vardana (gunny bags) in the mandi, which is also adding to the farmers’ waiting time,” stated farmer Sukhjeet Singh.
Vijay Kalra president of the Federation of Arhtiya Association of Punjab, stated: “These are teething problems and will be resolved as every new system has new things to learn and we will learn soon.”
