Bhubaneswar: Satellite surveys have caught massive irregularities in registration of paddy fields in two districts of Odisha namely Bargarh and Keonjhar.
With the aim to bring transparency in the paddy procurement process, the state government had earlier asked for the details of paddy fields. It made it mandatory for farmers to register their name to sell crop.
During verification, a total of 5364 fake farmers were identified. After this, the Agricultural Department also conducted satellite surveys of the fields that were registered as agricultural. To its shock, the department found out massive fraud in the registration process.
The satellite survey has found some lands are to be fake even the report of farming on the land is also fake. Some people even have given information of residential land with buildings as agricultural land. Shockingly, some even have registered the land near railway lines as agricultural field. The numbers of such irregularities are high in Bargarh district of the state. It is followed by Keonjhar.
According to reports received so far, there are a total of 87, 615 fake agricultural lands in Bargarh district. It is followed by Keonjhar district, where paddy has not been cultivated in 81, 357 lands.
After finding the massive fraud through the satellite survey, the concerned officials are conducting on-spot verifications.
This year, a total of 60,941 farmers have registered their names to sell paddy in Keonjhar district. Last year, this number was 64,202. Now after the satellite survey it was found that 81,357 plots have not been cultivated. Due to this, the Central Cooperative society has formed a total of 183 teams and started its on-spot inspection.
From the preliminary inspections, it has come to the fore that out of 6761 lands, paddy has been cultivated in 1975 land. The rest 4786 lands are fake and they include roads, ponds, embankments, railway lines.
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