For e-passes to farmers, state ties up with OLA

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 15

The state government has, in collaboration with OLA, developed a unique centralised automated, logic-based technology platform for issuance of e-passes to 17 lakh farmers in the state, along with online management and regulation of all trolleys and vehicular movement in the mandis.

The OLA app, installed on the mobile phones of the farmers, shall also alert them on the rush spots at the mandi gates to check overcrowding. The centralised dashboard of the app, an initiative aligned to the social distancing guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, shall also give alerts on pass issuance, expiry and validation.

This system enables secretaries of market committees across the state to generate mobility passes for the farmers by the purchase centres as well as by the arhtiyas. The software generates the required number of passes automatically, based on historic data available with the Mandi Board.

The arhtiyas shall distribute these mobility passes to their farmers to enable the latter to come on the designated date at the purchase centre concerned. The farmer shall also receive an SMS with pass number and link to download the app.

Vishwajit Khanna, Additional Chief Secretary, Development, said apart from the e-pass system, an m-pass system had also been developed in the e-PMB mobile application. A unicode SMS is sent to every arhtiya at the time of pass issuance. The arhtiya can allocate the passes to trolley drivers through the in-built m-pass system. The drivers can then download the m-pass using the SMS received on his number, and use this m-pass at police nakas for permitted mobility.

Ravi Bhagat, Secretary Punjab Mandi Board and Special Secretary Governance Reforms, said with features such as geo-tagging, geo-hashing, alerts and emergency support, this technology would help the government manage mandi operations well.

Pranay Jivrajka, Co-founder Ola, said, “By helping the government connect with the farmers using our technology platform, we are able to put our capabilities to the best use when the nation requires innovation and collaboration to quickly come out of this national crisis.”