By Express News Service

SRIKAKULAM: With biometric attendance made mandatory, farmers have to spend hours together to purchase seeds from seed distribution centres. In some cases the farmers were rejected as the land shown in the web land portal was not linked with Aadhaar card. In such cases, the farmers have to rush to revenue office to link the Aadhaar.

Agriculture officials have made available 64,802 quintal of paddy seeds out at various seed distribution centres in the district. So far, 70 per cent of seeds have been distributed in the district.

In Srikakulam, agriculture officials are taking biometric attendance at agriculture officer’s office, MPDO office where the farmers have been purchasing seeds from the paddy distribution centre at District Cooperative Marketing Society (DCMS) godown in Arasavalli.

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“I have been cultivating three acres of agriculture land at Voppangi village. When I went to the AO office to buy seeds, I was given only two packets as some portion of the field was not uploaded in the web land portal,” S Rama Rao, a farmer of Voppangi village, said.

“I could purchase the seeds only after my Aadhaar was linked at the revenue office,” Bairagi, a farmer from Arasavalli, said.

To avoid delay in distributing seeds, “We took biometric attendance of the farmers at the distribution centres,” agriculture officer, Srikakulam, D Padmavati said.

“Those who could not attend the biometric attendance at their villages due to a variety of reasons are doing the same at our office,” she added. Not more than five per cent of cases have been rejected on grounds of not linking Aadhar with the portal. The District Collector was quite strict about that, she added.

District Agriculture Joint Director Appala Swamy said, “We will distribute 75,900 quintal of seed this year; the quantum was more than that distributed in the past five years. Except hurdles such as biometric attendance, disparity between pass book and web land portal, the distribution of seeds was peaceful.”