STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: The state of affairs in the State Agriculture Department is slowly moving from bad to worse. Be it the distribution of subsidized urea to farmers or the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), there have been many administrative lapses in the Agriculture Department.
In agriculture, urea is intensively used as a nitrogen fertilizer. Urea helps plants produce larger flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Last year, the Assam Government had issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to streamline the distribution of urea among farmers. This move was taken to prevent the monopoly of a section of traders in urea supply and black marketing. However, due to a lack of strict monitoring and vigilance by the Agriculture Department, black marketing of urea by unscrupulous traders continues; and the urea syndicate continues to thrive.
On Thursday, police seized a truck laden with subsidized urea at Barpeta Road. Based on further investigation, police seized 1,050 bags of subsidized urea and fertilizers from the house of one Nayab Ali. If the SOP issued by the government is being followed, how were so many bags of subsidized urea hoarded with the obvious intention of black marketing the urea?
Sources said that in Nagaon, Hojai, Morigaon, Darrang, Barpeta and some other districts, some middlemen get subsidized urea issued by showing the voter cards of farmers. This urea is then sold at high prices. Under the new system of subsidized urea distribution, 50 bags of urea are issued against each farmer. The farmer has to produce his voter card to get the subsidized urea issued in his name. While in other states farmers have to produce their Aadhaar cards, in Assam, farmers must show their voter cards.
There are small farmers who do not need 50 bags of urea. Unscrupulous middlemen somehow manage to collect the voter cards of such farmers and procure urea at subsidized rates. These middlemen then sell this urea at high rates elsewhere. The question that arises is how do such irregularities and corruption escape the notice of the agricultural development officers at the district level? Is it because there may be some nexus between these officers and the middlemen?
Recently, the Director of the Department of Agriculture wrote a letter to urea manufacturing companies to ensure that urea is supplied to the retail sale points. It has often been seen that the urea manufacturing companies do not supply the urea to the retailers at the sale points. As a result, the retailers have to bring the urea from the warehouses, railway stations, etc. This increases their transportation cost due to which the retailers are unable to sell the urea to farmers at the MRP (maximum retail price) fixed by the government.
Three years ago, the State Agriculture Department was rocked by a scam in distribution of funds under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN). Under the scheme, an income support of Rs 6,000 per year in three equal installments is provided to all landholding farmer families. There were allegations that funds amounting to crores of rupees were transferred to the bank accounts of 12 lakh ineligible farmers.
Last year, in November, the Gauhati High Court asked the Assam Government to take “appropriate action” against officials involved in irregularities in distributing benefits under the PM-KISAN scheme in the State, to identify the ineligible beneficiaries who receive the fund money and to recover the fund money from them. However, despite the court’s order, these ineligible beneficiaries have not been identified as yet, let alone recovering the fund money from them.
Assam has an agri-based economy with the majority of the population dependent on agricultural activities for their livelihood. The agriculture sector of the State is replete with challenges like climate change, limited irrigation facilities, natural disasters like floods, lack of availability of quality seeds, insufficient cold storage facilities. etc. The need of the hour is to revamp the State Agriculture Department in the greater interest of the farmers of the State, and eliminate the middlemen in the supply and distribution chain.
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