In his continuing efforts to appease all sections of the voters ahead of the general elections, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched a Digital Bazaar and distributed free mobile phones to farmers at a State-level function held here on Tuesday. The farmers can access market information relating to agriculture.

Patnaik distributed mobile phones to 5,000 farmers having Kisan Credit Cards in the first phase from the targeted 20,000 covering all the districts. Each mobile set costs Rs 1,000.

The farmers would get up-to-date information through free SMS, voice calls and expert advices relating to agriculture, said Patnaik. The remaining 15,000 beneficiaries would get the phones at district levels very shortly, he said.

Patnaik said the Government would set up 150 market yards across the State to strengthen the marketing infrastructure at the block level. An action plan has been finalised to reinforce the agricultural marketing in the State, he said.

He directed the departmental officials to take steps to avoid middlemen’s interference while marketing agricultural produce of the farmers.     

Cooperation Minister Bikram Keshari Arukh said Odisha is the second State in the country after Haryana to implement this scheme. The Odisha Government in a first-ever Agriculture Budget had announced the scheme for the lead farmers and had allocated Rs 2 crore for the scheme.

Arukh said the objective of the scheme is to empower farmers for proper planning of crops and better price realisation for their produce under the Digital Mandi Scheme, which is a Government of India project developed by the IIT, Kanpur.

According to officials, the farmers would have to register themselves with the Digital Mandi to get information on market prices of various agricultural produce in different markets of the country at their hand instantly through the mobile phones in form of voice call and SMS. The scheme would be implemented by the Regulated Market Committees (RMCs).

In order to update themselves, the farmers can also access the information on market prices of agricultural produce at any time in the Government of India’s agmarknet.nic.in portal, said the officials.

Among others, Agriculture Minister Debi Prasad Mishra, Bhubaneswar MP Prasanna Patsani, city MlAs Ashok Panda, Bijay Mohanty and Bhagirathi Badajena, the Cooperation Department Secretary and professors of IIT, Kanpur were present.