Punjab first in country to store J-Forms of farmers in DigiLocker

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 9

Punjab has become the first state to start storing quintessential J-Forms of farmers in a DigiLocker. With this, farmers will not be required to carry or submit physical copies of these forms, but just share the e-copies for availing of subsidies or loans.

An initiative of Punjab Mandi Board, the J-Forms generated for the ongoing Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) for all farmers have been put in the Digilockers. Farmers will no longer be dependent on the arhtiyas to get these crucial forms, but can simply download these and use.

It may be mentioned that J-Forms are required for a plethora of activities such as getting Income Tax waivers, subsidy on fertilisers; crop loans from banks; and even for getting their crop insurance and health insurance.

Gurbakshish Singh, a farmer from Bimbri village in Nabha, said the initiative was a game changer as the farmers would have access to the J-Forms at the click of a button. “Many times, arhtiyas withhold these forms and farmers have to run after them to get these, or these forms are misplaced. It is yet another step in making farmers independent of these arhtiyas,” he said.

Last year the state government had started storing the J-Forms online. The Aadhaar card number and the mobile/telephone numbers of the farmers, too, were linked to the J-Form. This made it easier for the Punjab Mandi Board to now store the forms in the DigiLocker. The facility is available, but the question now arises of the accessibility of smartphones and computers with farmers to download these forms.

Ravi Bhagat, Secretary, Punjab Mandi Board, who is the brains behind this initiative, said at least one person in the farmers’ household has access to a smartphone. “We are stepping up dissemination of information to farmers on how to access these forms. For this, secretaries of each market committee have been asked to widely circulate flowcharts on how to access these forms. All other government departments have been issued directions to ensure that the e-J Forms are accepted and since these will have a QR code, these can be immediately authenticated,” he said, adding that farmers would have to just download the DigiLocker app on the phone and show the stored J-Form.

Punjab has already started storing driving licences and all education certificates in the DigiLocker. Next on the cards, say officials in Governance Reforms, is the putting of smart ration cards in the DigiLocker, while they look at putting all land records in the DigiLocker.

What’s J-Form used for

Income tax waivers, subsidy on fertilisers, crop loans, crop and health insurance, etc