Port Blair, Sept 15: Mr. Vishal Jolly, Former State President & Core-Committee Member, BJP A & N Islands & Member, Home Ministry Advisory Committee, GoI has requested for making provisions for disbursement of Fertilizers and Pesticides to the farmers of A & N Islands without insisting for making payments through online mode through a letter addressed to Chief Secretary, A & N Administration and Secretary, Department of Education, A & N Administration.
In his letter Mr. Jolly wrote that the only mode of payment accepting for availing subsidized fertilizers and pesticides for the farmers by Agriculture Department through few online modes like Paytm, Google Pay etc. and the problem is that, at various places, far flung Islands of Andaman & Nicobar, the internet connectivity is extremely poor and or not available at all.
He further added that other basic difficulty is that these transactions can be carried out only through an Android phone which most of the farmers in our Islands doesn’t have. Furthermore, a number of farmers are uneducated & therefore they are not equipped with the manner in which the online transaction has to be made. Due to the aforementioned difficulties, several farmers are not able to avail the benefits of receiving subsidized fertilizers and pesticides in time and as a result of which their crops gets damaged.
Concluding in his letter he mentioned that it is not plausible to insist them for making online transactions and requested the Administration to make an option/provision for enabling offline payments i.e. by Cash, in addition to the existing mode of online payments, in the interest of farmer’s welfare.
