Bhubaneswar, March 8: Odisha's Minister for Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare, Krushna Chandra Patra reviewed various activities and programmes of the department at Lokseva Bhawan here on Saturday.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department, Sanjay Kumar Singh; Managing Director, Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation, Shubham Saxena along with other senior officials.

At the outset of the meeting, Principal Secretary Singh apprised about various programmes and initiatives of the department. So far, 70 lakh metric tonnes of paddy has been procured from around 15.65 lakh farmers during the ongoing kharif season in the State and about Rs. 15,613 crore has been transferred to the farmers' accounts as MSP and Rs. 5430 crore as Input Assistance. It was also discussed in detail how the process of paddy procurement can be streamlined further in the upcoming rabi season.

The paddy procurement process for Rabi will begin from 1st May to 30th June this year. For this, the registration of farmers will be started from this month, Singh said. Similarly, it was discussed in the meeting to provide the remaining rice produced from paddy procured to the Food Corporation of India.

The Minister also directed the concerned officers to speed up the process of e-KYC in the State. The e-KYC process for about 92 per cent of the beneficiaries has been completed so far. The e-KYC process is underway by arranging internet at Fair Price Shops (FPSs) in areas with weak internet connectivity. Efforts are also underway to get information about 30.84 lakh beneficiaries who have not been included in the process so far.

On the other hand, selected 30 FPSs will be transformed as Jan-Poshan Kendra on pilot basis to provide nutritious products like Millets along with PDS and other items. For this, a team will visit the Jan-Poshan Kendras in other States to get first-hand information about their functioning, officials said.

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