In an important initiative for cost cutting the reducing the red tape the UP State Agriculture Produce Marketing Board has signed an MoU with the State bank Of India for management of its accounts. "It's a win win situation for us as in one go it will eliminate the payment of TA and DA to 300 employees each month and also save the interest and also eliminate red tape and corruption'' said the Rajesh Kumar Singh, director of UP State Agriculture Produce marketing Board. Agriculture Produce Marketing Board (APMB) or Mandi Parishad as it is better known, gets revenue receipts from as many as 247 Agriculture produce marketing committees (APMC) and 348 sub-marketing committees spread in 71 districts of the state. Every month each APMC and sub marketing committee remits the revenue to the headquarter or the APMB. The revenue is close to Rs 500 crore in an agriculture year from July to June. The revenue generated by each APMC is shared with the APMB as per the provisions of the UP State Agriculture Produce Marketing Board Act, and the subsequent rules framed by the state government. The APMC remits the revenue each month to the APMB by demand draft and send a person to Lucknow to physically deliver the draft. This process besides being cumbersome also cost heavily to both the bodies as each month 247 persons undertake journey to Lucknow, charging TA and DA and the APMCs paying commission for the bank draft to the bank which is estimated to be over Rs 2.5 crore each year. "The MoU for account management will hugely cut our costs and save the man days involved in delivering of the bank draft by the APMC at the APMBs headquarter at Lucknow. Moreover the money delivered by the APMC to us remained in air for ten days, as with the issue of the draft by the bank to the APMC it was debited from their account and it took seven to ten days in crediting the money in our account'' said Rajesh Kumar Singh director of the UP State Agriculture marketing Board. The director said "the receipts we get from the APMCs are then transferred via bank draft to our field units like the deputy director construction and deputy director administration at the divisional level''. Though we being a big account our banker have exempted us from charging commission on bank draft but we have to depute a person for each unit for physically delivering the draft. Now we will save the cost in terms of the TA and DA paid to that employees and also the man days involved in delivering the draft'' informed the director Rajesh Kumar Singh. "The SBI was initially reluctant to take up our account but we had no option as only the SBI has the state wide network to provide business solution of our requirement. The SBI later agreed and also developed the software specific to our needs'' said the director. With the MoU with the SBI, to be operational from July 1 next, the accounts of all the APMCs will be opened with the SBI and there will be electronic transfer of funds. "Daily with click of mouse I can keep a tab on the receipt from each APMC and their transfer to field units of the APMB'', said Rajesh Kumar Singh.
