Enquiries lead to raids, suspension of corrupt officials.
The country’s largest wheat-producing state, Uttar Pradesh, is witnessing large-scale irregularities and corruption at field level in the ongoing procurement season.
These have forced the state food and civil supplies department to conduct raids on procurement centres, resulting in suspensions and registration of first information reports against the officials accused.
Although over 2.1 million tonne (mt) of wheat has been procured so far as compared to the target of four mt for the season, the process has been rather sluggish and in all likelihood, the target will not be achieved with a little over a month left for the season to wrap.
The government had attempted to curb corruption by rationalising the purchase process, issuing photo identity cards to farmers, introducing token system and payment through cheque. But, it has come a cropper and middlemen are having a field day.
On May 25, four separate teams had raided procurement centres in Jalaun and detected irregularities. Three officials were suspended. In Orai, discrepencies were found in stock inventory and weighing of wheat.
Similar complaints have come from Lakhimpur, Shahjahanpur and Jhansi.
“The parallel system that has developed in the procurement process continues
to thrive despite all measures,” farmers’ advocacy body Kisan Jagrati Manch President Sudhir Panwar told Business Standard.
He alleged middlemen in connivance with procurement centre staff were dissuading farmers from selling at the centres and purchased the same at much below the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,170 per quintal (including Rs 50 bonus).
“Although the cheque is released on the basis of farmers’ land record and his name, the middlemen take their cut in the process,” he alleged.
He maintained less than 50 per cent of the 4,564 state procurement centres actually functioned on the ground. The procurement season had kicked off from April 1 and will continue through June.
“The actual procurement in this season would be below three mt,” he added.
Meanwhile, Uday Pratap Singh, a wheat cultivator from Bahraich, claimed the procurement centres were not purchasing wheat from farmers, who were thus forced to sell their crop to middlemen at Rs 1,050 per quintal.
“Since, the farmers do not have any storage facility, they have to sell wheat at any cost to empty their field for the next crop,” he said.
UP has witnessed a bumper wheat output at 28.8 mt over 9.7 million hectares. Last year, wheat production stood at 27.5 mt.
The government had estimated 5.5 mt of wheat to be surplus and available for procurement. A major portion of the rabi crop is retained by farmers for personal consumption and the remaining comes to market.
“All the procurement centres are functioning normally and we are hopeful of achieving the target,” the department’s chief marketing officer Dinesh Chand Dubey said.
