The Punjab government Sunday rejected as "baseless and unfounded" allegations of mismanagement in the purchase of machinery for in situ management of crop residue and said the whole process was being carried out under the supervision of the central government's task force headed by Secretary Agriculture Government of India.
The government's statement has come after SAD had demanded a CBI probe into the purchase of machinery by the state government for managing paddy straw, alleging that the farm equipment had been purchased at nearly "double" the market rate.
Elaborating on the equipment procurement process, a spokesperson of the agriculture department said the quality standards and prices of agro-machines for managing paddy straw in the states of Punjab, Haryana, UP and Delhi have been fixed by a task force at the Government of India level.
The top functionaries of Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) and NITI Aayog besides representatives of all four states, are the members of the committee constituted to formulate and monitor the roll out of the scheme for paddy residue management and its time-bound implementation.
The spokesperson further said the specification and pricing of machines has been fixed by technical teams consisting of representatives of Agricultural Universities of Punjab, Haryana, ICAR , Central Government Machine Testing Centers and technical members from the states.
The process to empanel manufacturers has been conducted directly by the Ministry of Agriculture, GOI after checking all test reports and other documents.
Quality audits have also been conducted at the premises of manufacturers by special teams of GOI to check technical capability and manufacturing capacity of manufacturers.
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He said the prices of equipment are, by and large, at par with the prices prevalent last year, except for some increase that occurred due to increased steel prices and mainly due to imposition of GST ranging from 12 per cent to 28 per cent on agriculture machinery by GOI, whereas there was almost no such tax on agri-machines in previous years.
The state government has sent requests to GOI to bring all the agricultural equipment or equipment exclusively for paddy straw management under zero per cent GST slab or the minimum slab of 5 per cent.
There is bound to be difference in prices of the equipment meeting the quality standards fixed by the National Agro-Machinery Test Centres and approved by GOI and the machines having no standards and no registration, the official said.
The farmers can purchase machines from the empanelled manufacturers of Punjab or from outside the state. Against the target of supplying 24,000 machines to farmers and farmer groups, already about 19,000 machines have been delivered and the rest are being supplied.