Maharashtra govt to roll out Aadhaar-linked fertilizers

This will be the first season, where the state government is implementing the direct benefit transfer scheme for fertilizers — a flagship programme of the central government.

aadhaar, aadhaar linking, Maharashtra govt, Aadhaar-linked fertilizers, maharashtra news, indian express news

The present scheme aims to stop this pilferage by linking Aadhaar numbers of farmers to the sales as well as making the sales through PoS machines.

With 23,416 point of sales (PoS) machines in place, Maharashtra aims to roll out the Aadhaar-linked sale of fertilizers scheme from this kharif season. This will be the first season, where the state government is implementing the direct benefit transfer scheme for fertilizers — a flagship programme of the central government.

On an average, the country witnesses sale of over 40 lakh tonne of fertilizers during the kharif season, with the government sources estimating that around 20 per cent is diverted to non-agricultural usage. The present scheme aims to stop this pilferage by linking Aadhaar numbers of farmers to the sales as well as making the sales through PoS machines.

Minister of agriculture Pandurang Fudkar had stated that farmers would be sold fertilizers without debit cards, but their Aadhaar numbers would be noted down. Senior officials of the agriculture department said that they had been conducting mapping of input sellers and all such outlets had been given the PoS machines. “Training camps have been conducted for input sellers to make them aware of the changes,” said a senior official of the department.

Parthasarathi Biswas

Partha Sarathi Biwas is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express with 10+ years of experience in reporting on Agriculture, Commodities and Developmental issues. He has been with The Indian Express since 2011 and earlier worked with DNA. Partha's report about Farmers Producer Companies (FPC) as well long pieces on various agricultural issues have been cited by various academic publications including those published by the Government of India. He is often invited as a visiting faculty to various schools of journalism to talk about development journalism and rural reporting. In his spare time Partha trains for marathons and has participated in multiple marathons and half marathons. ... Read More

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