J Form

J Form

Subject: Agriculture

Section: Agri Marketing

Context- The Punjab Mandi Board has decided to send a ‘digital form J’ on the WhatsApp number of farmers from this Rabi procurement season,

Concept-

What is the ‘J form’

• ‘J form’ is the sale receipt of a farmer’s agricultural produce in mandis (grain market).
• These forms were earlier issued manually by arthiyas (commission agents) because in Punjab, a majority of farmers sell their crops through such agents only.
• Also, this form is an income proof for a farmer who sells his crop.

How will its digitisation help the farmers?

• Before digitisation of the J form, several arhtiyas had the habit of keeping these forms with themselves, instead of providing it to the farmers, which was their right.
• Hence, many farmers ended up having no record of their income after selling their crops.
• But by getting digitised J form, farmers will now have a clear record of the crop sold and income received in lieu of that and it will save their time as well, ensuring that they do not need to run to arhtiyas to get copies of their sale.
• These forms will be delivered directly on a farmer’s WhatsApp number immediately after a sale is confirmed on the system by the arthiyas and buyers, who are mainly government procurement agencies.
• If any farmer changes his/her WhatsApp number, then they can see the J forms in their digilocker, which are legally at par with original physical documents under Rule 9A of the Information Technology (Preservation and Retention of Information by Intermediaries providing Digital Locker facilities) Rules, 2016 notified on February 8, 2017.

How does the move help farmers?

• The ‘J form’ can be used for
  • raising finance from financial institutions,
  • IT waivers, subsidy claims,
  • farmer’s insurance.
  • get admission for their wards in educational institutes abroad. For example, ‘J form’, which is considered as an authenticate document of income in the Canadian embassy.
  • The move will stop the theft of grains by some arhtiyas.

How will the government benefit?

• The government will have a proper record of the land under cultivation for both the wheat and paddy crops in the state as well as an idea of their average per acre yield.
• Eventually other crops can also be brought under the J form even if the government does not procure the other crops.
• People who are doing sale/purchase in the mandis for the other crops can be asked to log their purchases through the J form to have accuracy of total land and production.
• The system can to a large extent check the sale of crops from other states in the mandis of Punjab.
• This will give them an idea as to how much quantity of a crop was grown in the state.
• In case of unusual procurements, the government will be able to identify accounts from which the fraudulent transaction was made.