ICT Based Paddy Procurement

The farmers' perception is used to identify major challenges, possible remedies to overcome the challenges and the prospect of application of ICT in paddy procurement. Triangulation of the qualitative and quantitative data collected under the study revealed a clear demand and a vast scope for the improvement of the current paddy procurement system. The opinions in the KIIs and FGDs found the prospect of a holistic approach to the effective paddy procurement system, in particular, of an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based. This is supported by the quantitative findings which reveal that about 94.30 % of the respondents opined regarding the need for an improvement of the current system, and 99.0% think that an ICT based paddy procurement system will help resolve the challenges. Moreover, 80.50 % of respondents have access to mobile phones and can use the Internet which conveys their readiness for an ICT based system. These findings led me to propose an ICT based paddy procurement system model which will make the activities of the paddy procurement more transparent to all including the farmers.