Food security allocation likely to go waste
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, May 26 2014: Certain quarters have raised deep ap-prehension about Rs 6.5 crore sanctioned by the Government of India for National Food Security Mission being imple-mented by Agriculture Direc- torate going waste without using the money for any pro-ductive purpose.

Information received from Agriculture Department said that the total amount of Rs 6.5 crore was released recently after the Lok Sabha election though it was inten-ded for release ahead of the election.

Amidst all the reports of Agriculture Department's inability to implement many central sponsored schemes in time, the fund for National Food Security Mission was released very late.

The amount of Rs 6.5 crore is inclusive of Rs 1.10 crore meant for organising cluster demonstration, procurement of high yielding variety seeds and hybrid seeds which should be distributed to farmers during cluster demonstration, grant of subsidy at the time of procuring agricultural equipment, organising training programmes etc.

Out of this Rs 1.10 crore, Rs 60 lakh is for the four val-ley districts at the rate of Rs 15 lakh per district and Rs 50 lakh for the five hill districts at the rate of Rs 10 lakh per district.

After the total amount of Rs 6.5 crore was handed over to the State Mission Director, the amount was distributed to different districts after the necessary document was counter signed by the Director and the Commissioner.

However, at the district level, a serious disagreement has cropped up between District Project Officers and Dis- trict Agriculture Officers.

This disagreement would jeopardise procurement and distribution of paddy seeds, informed the source.

It is fea-red that the department would not be able to distribute paddy seeds to farmers in time.

The amount earmarked for procuring seeds is Rs 1.10 crore.

Paddy seeds procured with this amount would be enough for 20,000 hectares of paddy fields in the hill districts and 24,000 hectares in the valley districts.

Paddy seed varieties which should be procured under the scheme are R-1, RCM 9 and RCM 10.R-1 variety of pad-dy seed should be purchased from the Central Agricultural University while RCM-9 and RCM-10 should be purchased from ICAR.

Even though the current month is in its last quarter, the department is still unable to procure paddy seeds indicating that the department would not be able to distribute paddy seeds to farmers in time.

Generally, sowing paddy seeds and transplantation begin in June in Manipur, reminded the source.

According to the guidelines of the scheme, District Project Officers should release the necessary fund for implementation of the scheme by District Agriculture Officers.

But the District Project Officers have been contending that the fund should be directly entrusted to District Agriculture Officers if they should not be given any role in implementing the scheme.

Given this stand-off, it remains unclear when would the paddy seeds be procured and distributed to farmers.

Even if no seeds were purchased, the department can still submit utilization certificate claiming that seeds were purchased, added the source.

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