Punjab: An app that is reforming govt, transforming agri markets

Ravi Bhagat, Secretary, PMB said “earlier the employees used to mark attendance either through wall-mounted biometric machines or offline attendance process”. But at times these machines developed some faults, and then many employees chose to visit the mandi directly instead of coming to the office to mark attendance. But this also meant that there was no way to keep track of who is working and who is not. “So to keep a track of all those field employees and also for their convenience, we introduced the e-PMB app. With its use, field employees can mark their attendance from outside offices as well,” said Bhagat.

The app also tracks the location of the employee and an employee’s salary has been attached to the online report of this app.

“Punjab Mandi Board has a total of 4,766 employees across the state and out of these 45 per cent mark their attendance using this app as they are the regular field workers,” said Bhagat.

The app was introduced in September last year and in just one year, the attendance of employees has improved by over 60 per cent. The app also allows employees to apply for leaves.

But the app is not just about employees. While initially the app was only meant for employee attendance, from February this year, PMB added many features in the app through which farmers could even get an online stall booked for “apni mandi” ( weekly fruit and vegetable market).

Details of district-wise registered commission agents in all mandis has been uploaded in the app and a farmer can see whether or not to visit a particular mandi on a particular day based on the business being conducted in the mandi. In the absence of the app, at times, farmers had to wait for 2-3 days to get their grains unloaded. But now since all transaction information is available on the app, they can plan their visits more efficiently.

Even though the app has not yet been launched formally, a total of 890 farmers have got themselves registered for online site booking for apni mandi, according to Nitin Bansal, IT Analyst of Punjab Mandi Board. “A slot can be booked online and later a farmer can pay the fee manually once he actually arrives to set up the stall. Not only this, daily vegetable/ fruits rates are also displayed in the app by noon every day so that consumers cannot be cheated by the vendors,” said Bhagat.