To ensure transparency, Punjab government on Thursday decided to provide digital J-Forms to the farmers across the state from April 1, 2022.Reacting to the initiative of Punjab Mandi Board (PMB), Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said it would benefit to over 9 lakh registered farmers, furnishing J-Forms digitally to them for their agriculture produce sold in mandis on their WhatsApp account in real time i.e. immediately on sale being confirmed on the system by the arhtiyas and buyers.
Mann said this move would provide real time access to system generated authentic digital J-Forms to farmers of the state, who could also download it from PMB website, in Arthia Login ID and DigiLocker, a GoI digital document wallet.
J-Form is the sale receipt of the farmer’s agricultural produce in mandis and was earlier issued manually by arhtiyas. PMB is pioneer in the country to issue e-JForms (for MSP procured paddy and wheat only) during the rabi marketing season and kharif marketing season 2021-22.
For the sake of ensuring authenticity, the digital JForm comes with a QR code, watermark and unique number.
The JForms saved in DigiLocker are legally on a par with the original physical documents in line with Rule 9A of the Information Technology (Preservation and Retention of Information by Intermediaries providing Digital Locker facilities) Rules, notified in 2016, so the government has asked the farmers to rest assured.
