Punjab ties up with Ola for app to issue e-passes to farmers
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 15
The Punjab Government has collaborated with OLA to develop a platform to issue e-passes to the 17 lakh farmers in the state, besides regulating online the movement of trailers and other vehicles in grain markets.
The app has been adopted by the Punjab Mandi Board to launch an e-pass system with the help of the Department of Governance Reforms and Public Grievances in view of the Covid-19 crisis, a press statement issued by the government said.
The Ola app, to be downloaded the mobile phones of farmers, will also alert them of rush points in a mandi to check overcrowding. A dashboard in the app will also sends alerts on pass issuance, expiry and validation.
This system enables secretaries of market committees to generate mobility passes for farmers by the Purchase Centres as well as by arhtiyas. The software generates the required number of passes automatically, based on the historical data available with the Mandi Board.
All arhtiyas will be provided with one pass for each trailer of wheat. The passes for a particular day will be provided three days in advance to the arhtiyas to prevent rush. This technology is also expected to bring in transparency in the process of wheat procurement.
The arhtiyas will distribute these passes to farmers to enable them to come to the purchase centre concerned on the designated date. The farmer will also receive an SMS with pass number, and a 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 ePMB mobile application. A Unicode SMS is sent to every arhtiya at the time of pass issuance. The arhtiya can allocate the passes to tractor-trailer drivers through the in-built m-pass system. The drivers can then download the pass using the SMS received on his number.
The online management will help the Mandi Board maintain law and order as well as observe health guidelines.
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 manage mandi operations well.
Pranay Jivrajka, co-founder of Ola, said, “By helping the government connect with farmers using our technology platform, we are able to put our capabilities to the best use when the country requires innovation to quickly come out of this crisis.”
