Chandigarh Newsline; Harpreet Bajwa; Friday,August 05, 2011.
The state government has given maximum subsidies to the primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS) in Muktsar the home district of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
According to the information obtained under Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Punjab State Farmers Commission has so far approved subsidy for 1,509 agro service centres including 270 individual farmers and 1,239 primary agriculture cooperative societies. Subsidy has been released for 211 farmers and 861 primary cooperative societies. Thus, a total of 1,072 centres have secured the subsidy of Rs 34.74 crore.
In contrast, Barnala, Hoshiarpur, Moga and Tarantarn districts have drawn a blank as far as sanction and release of subsidies to individual farmers are concerned. They have, however, faired better in regard to PACS.
A study of the list of beneficiaries throws up interesting facts. In Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s home district of Muktsar, 79 individual farmers and 40 PACS were sanctioned subsidy. Out of this, subsidy has been released to 53 individual farmers and 35 PACS representing one of the highest sanction when compared to the release ratio.
Another beneficiary under the scheme is Parkash Singh son of agriculture minister Sucha Singh Langah. Parkash got subsidy from his father in his home district of Gurdaspur.
He was given a subsidy of Rs 3.30 lakh for the purchase of necessary agriculture implements. Sources said that around 9 acres of land was transferred on Parkash Singh’s name so that he can be eligible for the subsidy.
As per rules under the scheme, a farmer who has less than 10 acres of land was eligible to apply for subsidy.
When contacted, Sucha Singh Langah said: “My department does not give subsidy, Punjab State Farmers Commission does. The chairman of the commission, G S Kalkat, and its secretary, B S Sidhu, decide on the matter. They give subsidy to those farmers who meet all norms.”’
Asked about Parkash, he said: “Yes, my son has got the subsidy, as he fulfilled all the criteria laid down. Nothing wrong in it. He is a farmer by profession and not employed anywhere else, so there has been no violation of any norms.”
Interestingly, Sidhu is also the director of the agriculture department, under which the commission falls.
The Scheme;
According to the RTI reply, the programme is designed to solve some of the serious problems being faced by the state’s farmers declining underground water level, a decrease in soil fertility, crop productivity, agriculture income and cost of agriculture inputs.
With this end in view, the programme envisages the purchase of laser land leveler, sugarcane sowing through trenches and dry sowing of paddy. It is also designed to discourage the widespread practice of burning wheat stalks, which reduces soil fertility. All this requires specialised machinery, which can sow wheat even when paddy stalks have not been removed from the fields. These machines are expensive while a laser land leveler costs Rs 3 lakhs, bed planter for dry sowing of paddy costs about Rs 55,000 and happy seeder, which is needed to prevent burning of agriculture waste, is priced at around Rs 1.15 lakh.
These machines are used for just one or two weeks every season. The farmers, therefore, are reluctant to invest in these. To overcome these difficulties and to encourage farmers to take to modern farming techniques, the state government decided to set up agriculture service centres. Here, the machinery is being procured for agriculture centres from where farmers can hire them. With this end in view, the government had invited applications. The potential beneficiaries were selected by district level committees headed by respective deputy commissioners and included chief agriculture officers of the concerned district, deputy director horticulture and deputy registrar cooperatives.
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