While selecting beneficiaries, preference will be given to famers having Rupay debit cards, Kisan credit cards and to those who are not loan defaulters
Bhubaneswar: The state government has decided to distribute free smartphones to farmers (both male and female) by July-end in a bid to woo farmers before the next general elections.
The Cooperation department has asked the Odisha State Agricultural Marketing (OSAM) Board to procure the phones and complete the process in time, sources said here Thursday.
The government had made a budgetary provision of Rs 3 crore last year for providing free mobile phones to farmers to access market information, and it was provisioned for 2018-19 in the state plan. However, the fund is now with the OSAM Board, the source said.
The government is distributing free smartphones to farmers to empower them with up to date market information through voice calls and SMS in Odia for better price realisation and production planning under the project ‘Digital Mandi’ implemented by Regulated Market Committees (RMCs).
The government has also fixed modalities for the selection of beneficiaries and procurement of mobile phones. As per the guidelines, OSAM Board will procure the mobiles and it will be distributed through RMCs.
The board has been asked to procure durable smartphones of established brands having Android facilities as that is required for undertaking transactions with e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) and receiving voice calls and SMS to access market information in languages like Odia under the Digital Mandi project.
After assessment of the total number of smartphones to be procured, the member secretary of the board will finalise district-wise beneficiaries considering the number of farmers registered with the RMCs functioning in the district concerned, the guidelines said.
While selecting beneficiaries, preference will be given to famers having Rupay debit cards, Kisan credit cards and to those who availed credit and remained default free. However, farmers who have already received free mobile phones under the above scheme will not be eligible.
The name of beneficiaries will be finalised by a seven-member panel headed by the Collector of the district concerned. The mobiles will be distributed at special functions organised at the district-level.
Earlier, the government had distributed 59,282 mobile phones to farmers free of cost in order to provide market information to them. While 18,000 mobile phones were distributed among farmers in 2013-14, 41282 phones were provided to women farmers holding Kisan Credit Cards in 2016-17.
