Farmers collective alleges discrepancies in disbursal of production incentive for crops in Puducherry

Representative image. File
| Photo Credit: S.S. Kumar

The Bangaaru Vaickal Neeradhara Koottamaippu, a farmers and water rights’ collective has urged the Puducherry government to conduct a comprehensive review into the disbursal of production incentive for agricultural and horticultural crops in the Union Territory for the year 2023-24.

In a letter addressed to Lt. Governor K. Kailashnathan, the president of the collective V. Chandrasekhar said the Department of Agriculture had been implementing the production incentive scheme since 2018. For paddy cultivation, the incentive is granted for any two seasons per year – either Sornavari and Samba or Samba and Navarai.

However, the government discourages cultivation of paddy during the Navarai season due to excessive depletion of groundwater levels. As a result, incentives are provided for either Sornavari or Navarai.

Mr. Chandrasekhar said that a detailed verification of data relating to production incentive on the Agriculture Department’s portal revealed that several farmers had received incentives for all three seasons, and in some cases, for both Sornavari and Navarai, violating government guidelines.

“The collective has found cases where incentives were disbursed for both sugarcane and paddy for the same field. However, this is impractical since sugarcane is an annual crop. Similar discrepancies were also noted for banana and paddy cultivation on the same field. Further, production incentives have been claimed for both Sornavari paddy and summer crops such as pulses, groundnut, and millets on the same land,” he said.

The responsibility for verifying records before disbursal of production incentive lies with the office of the Additional Director of Agriculture (Training and Visit). However, the illegal claims have come to light due to negligence of officials. Hence, the government should take stringent action against officials responsible for the discrepancies and fraudulent claims.

The government should also appoint a senior official and conduct a thorough review of the disbursal of production incentive for 2023-24 and take appropriate action, the collective said.