AP sets up 24×7 control room for clean procurement

The government in Andhra Pradesh buys rice and other grains from farmers to keep in storage.

A minister named Nadendla Manohar has announced a new 24×7 control room that will watch over this grain-buying process.

The control room will work day and night to make sure farmers are paid on time and their problems are fixed quickly.

A public dashboard, like a big information screen, will be built so people can see how grain buying is going.

Farmers already use WhatsApp to tell the government how much grain they want to sell, and it worked very well.

During the last season, farmers used WhatsApp to schedule picking up about 67,000 tonnes of paddy rice.

The minister also warned that the coming months may be dry because of a weather pattern called El Niño.

In Eluru district, rainfall was 74 percent below normal, yet farmers planted 400 percent more crops, which could be risky.

So he asked farmers to grow crops that need less water and to save water wisely.

Starting next season, farmers will also get paid quickly for hauling their grain, and new RFID tags will help stop rice theft.