Agriculture Deptt spends crores in development, only to bring down crop production

GANGTOK: In the five years from 2005 to 2010, the Food Security and Agriculture Development Department spent Rs. 13.95 crore on implementing the Integrated Cereal Development Programme in Sikkim. The projects aim is self explanatory – to increase production and productivity on a sustainable basis. The Department obviously bungled big, because five years down the line and nearly Rs. 14 crore later, crop production in Sikkim fell by 10.16 per cent. This, despite the fact that area under cereal cultivation actually increased in these years.
This revelation is included in the Performance Review of the FS&AD by the Comptroller & Auditor General of India’s office and included in the CAG Report tabled in the Legislative Assembly during the recently concluded Budget session. The ICD Programme was part of a Rs. 64.87 crore [from 2005-06 to 2009-10] Macro-Management of Agriculture programme.

The ICD Programme also envisaged to developing superior seeds locally to reduce dependence on purchase of seeds from outside the State. In the year 2009-10, the Department purchased 466 tonnes of seeds, 113 per cent more than what it had purchased in 2005-06, the year the programme to reduce this outside dependence began!
When the Audit pointed this out to the Department, it was told that the matter was being “examined”.
One reason behind the failure of the programme, apart from the obvious administrative disinterest, is that the Department has not yet decided on a standard criteria for selection of beneficiaries.
Planning is obviously not a strength the Department can boast of, and this manifests in how it spends its budget – between 63 to 74 per cent of it in March, the last month of a financial year. “This is indicative of rush of expenditure at the end of the year to exhaust scheme funds without proper planning and monitoring,” the Performance Review underlines.
There have also been instances when the head office releases funds to the districts for implementation of schemes on the last day of the financial year, releasing Rs. 6.37 crore in 2009-10 in this fashion.
The Department is also the nodal department to make Sikkim an Organic State by 2015. Vermi-composting, the use of earthworm eco-technology, is an important organic tool to maintain soil fertility. Newspaper houses are routinely forwarded press releases claiming the conduction of vermin-composting training in remote corners of the State. Here is what the Audit found out about the implementation.
Between 2005 to 2010, Rs. 9.23 crore was spent on constructing 19,376 vermi compost pits, the highest number, 6,750 in the year 2006-07.  4,700 of these pits were not functional due to faulty planning in construction! That’s nearly 70% failure rate.
The Department claims to have spent Rs. 9.23 crore on this project, but never bothered to record output [production] of vermi-compost. Although it claimed that its field workers imparted training, because there are no records to suggest this.
Also, in March 2006, the Department withdrew Rs. 20 lakh for distribution as cash incentive for farmers for construction of vermin-compost pits. While the Department claims to have paid out Rs. 1000 to 2000 per farmer, it could furnish only 18 acknowledgement receipts, 11 of which did not record the amount received.
It is not all bad news for the Department. The audit records that the Department performed well in terracing works in forest areas and beneficiary lands, seedling plantation in forest areas and construction of harvesting tanks and surface water storage. While the results were good, utilisation was still inconsistent though.