Stubble management machines: Sold off by farmers, lost in pilferage but no Punjab vigilance bureau probe yet

Four months have passed since agriculture minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, directed in the month of August, for an inquiry by the state’s investigating agency, vigilance bureau, into subsidised machines given to farmers for paddy stubble management ‘going missing’ during the past four years, the state’s top brass is still pondering over the matter.

Four months have passed since agriculture minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, directed in the month of August, for an inquiry by the state’s investigating agency, vigilance bureau, into subsidised machines given to farmers for paddy stubble management ‘going missing’ during the past four years, the state’s top brass is still pondering over the matter.

Sources say the matter is pending with the chief minister’s office as farmers, construed as tangible force in the state, the government doesn’t want to antagonise them by initiating a vigilance probe. Other than the farmers, who have been the beneficiaries of the subsidy scheme, machine manufacturers, dealers, and some department officials are also in the line of fire. Instead of VB probe, a four-member audit team of the state finance department (FD) has been deputed to track the disbursement of subsidy to the farmers on purchase of machines.

“Our team started investigating the matter last month. It is a complicated subject as each and every machine given to the farmer, its bill and subsidy disbursement to the beneficiaries are to be matched and verified,” revealed an officer of the rank of controlled in the FD, adding that there is no deadline fixed to complete the task.

In a physical verification completed by the staff of state agriculture departmnet in August, 90422 machines were given to the farmers on subsidy out of which 11,000 machines (14%) could not be found as farmers have either sold or manufacturers have not supplied. The state department initiated the verification after Centre’s agency, that probes financial irregularities, raised doubt over the subsidy disbursement and asked the state government to verify machines disbursement report.

These machines were supplied during the kharif harvest from year 2018 to 2021, and total ₹ 1,145 crore were spent on subsidy given by the Centre’s ministry of agriculture. The loss incurred owing to the missing machines was pegged to ₹ 140 crore.

The scheme of subsidy in machines in the state, began with the intervention of the Prime Minister’s office in 2017-18, when the smoke rising from the fields of Punjab, due to burning of paddy straw was seen as contributing to a thick layer of smog a cuase of severe environment and health hazard.

“Machines being missing suggests they were never manufactured. It seems that there is a nexus of stakeholders at all levels,” said the official, adding that farmers’ groups had been found to be blatantly involved in pilferage.

Sources say, in the month of August itself, the agriculture minister has sent the matter for giving the probe of missing machines for formal approval of the CM, but so far there is no response and the FD team was asked to track the flow of subsidy amount. According to a senior officer in VB, so far there is no communication from the government over the matter.

The subsidised machines provided to the farmers include the super-straw management system, happy seeders, super seeders, paddy straw choppers, reversible ploughs, zero till drill, balers, rakes and shrub master, smart seeders and spatial seed drills and crop reapers, and self-propelled reaper-cum-binders.

While an individual farmer was offered a subsidy of 50% on a single machine, custom-hiring centres run by village-level agricultural cooperative societies, farmers’ groups and village panchayats were offering a subsidy of 80% per machine. In the current paddy harvest season 21,880 machines for stubble management were given to the state farmers and so far, subsidy to the tune of ₹ 200 crore has been transferred to 19,817 beneficiaries and for rest of the case a verification was underway.