Addressing a long pending issue of tenant farmers in selling their produce at paddy procurement centres being run by the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) or Indira Krathi Patham (IKP) centres, the authorities have modified online procurement and management system (OPMS). Now, the OPMS will reflect the name of the tenant farmer, his phone number and the bank account details.
Meanwhile, the Agriculture Extension Officers (AEOs) were entrusted with the responsibility of ascertaining the extent of land being cultivated by a tenant farmer. Once this is confirmed by the concerned officer, it would be entered into the OPMS system, which will contain all columns like that of pattadar passbook. This has become operational from Monday and officials are already entering the details of tenant farmers. In the owners column, the detail of land owner will be as it is. Tenant farmers selling their produce is a serious problem as the system allows only land owners to sell their produce.
The tenants farmers used to sell their produce in the name of land owners and get the amount after some time it was credited by authorities into the account of owner. There were instances where the land owner took longer time to credit the amount they received from selling of produce by tenant farmer to the right owner.
“We will enter the details of tenant farmer in the column in the modified OPMS along with other details like phone number and bank account. Once the amount is released, it would be directly credited in the account of tenant farmer. This will benefit about 25 lakh tenant farmers across the State. Their problems of selling the produce and waiting to get money are addressed once for all,” said an officer on condition of anonymity.
