UP sugarcane department to send supply tickets via SMS to prevent Covid spread

PILIBHIT/BIJNOR: The state sugarcane administration has launched an exclusive system for sending the sugarcane supply tickets to farmers through SMS on their registered mobile phones. Prior to this, there was a practice of issuing the paper supply tickets. This is being done to curb crowding at crushing centres and check the spread of Covid-19.
Instructions have been issued to all regional and district cane officers across the state to ensure its wide publicity and to launch a campaign for updating the correct mobile numbers of all sugarcane farmers with the departmental system.
According to officials, the move is primarily aimed at dispelling the pandemic fear among the cane farmers. There are 119 sugar mills in the state, most of which are ready to begin operations. Additional cane commissioner VK Shukla said, “Preparations are almost made and we hope mills will start their operation from this month itself or the first week of November. They have given their tentative date of operation.”
Additional chief secretary, sugarcane department, Sanjay R Bhoosreddy said, “The new system is aimed at ensuring the complete transparency in the issuance of the supplytickets, reducing the expenditure of the sugarcane societies in ensuring the timely delivery of the paper tickets at the door steps of every sugarcane grower and saving the official time consumed till now by the traditional method. This will also wipe out farmers’ complaints normally filed about the delivery of the paper supply tickets to the wrong person or at the late stage.”
“The farmers have been advised to ensure that they feed their correct mobile number to the department’s ERP (enterprise resource planning) system to avert the inconvenience. In case of the feeding of incorrect mobile numbers, they can either go for the rectification themselves through the ‘e-ganna app’ of the department or through the respective office of the district cane officer, he said.
The SMS supply tickets would get automatically cancelled within 24 hours in case the message boxes of the farmers’ mobile phone were filled completely and failed to provide room to the supply ticket messages, he warned.
“The daily acknowledgement sheet of supply tickets on which the sugarcane is to be weighed, will also be labeled at the cane purchasing centers through which the farmers can know the status of their supply tickets.
The new system would also enable the farmers to harvest their sugarcane crop in time and supply the fresh cane to mills which would avoid the weight loss in cane after the harvesting. This will also help prevent the spread of novel coronavirus, Bhoosreddy said.