Bhubaneswar: Soon, landowners living outside of Odisha, including those abroad, will have the ability to give their consent online via a specialized mobile application for the registration of paddy cultivated by sharecroppers, announced Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister Krushna Chandra Patra on Monday.

This initiative seeks to assist sharecroppers whose landowners are unable to travel to Odisha during the registration phase for the current Kharif season of 2026-27.

During a press conference in Bhubaneswar, Patra emphasized that obtaining the landowner’s consent is essential for a sharecropper to register for paddy procurement.

“First, the landowner has to give consent to the sharecropper. After that, the sharecropper can complete the paddy registration process,” the minister stated.

Patra explained that the government is creating a dedicated application that will allow landowners living outside the state or abroad to provide their consent remotely.

“If the landowner is staying outside the state or abroad and cannot come here during the paddy registration process, they can give their consent through the app,” he noted.

The application will incorporate facial recognition and eye scanning technologies to authenticate the identity of landowners before their consent is documented.

This new system will enable landowners to complete the consent procedure without needing to visit Odisha in person, thereby streamlining the registration process for sharecroppers seeking to procure paddy.

The initiative is being launched ahead of the Kharif paddy procurement season and is anticipated to benefit a significant number of sharecroppers whose landowners reside outside Odisha or in different countries.