Funds allocated in July for diesel subsidy haven't reached many farmers yet; irrigation projects needed, say locals
(The story has been updated on October 17, 2022 to add that the proposed allocation for the subsidy received cabinet nod on October 14, 2022)
The agriculture department of the Bihar government has allocated Rs 100 crore in diesel subsidy October 14, 2022 to help distressed farmers get diesel subsidy.
The plan announced in a public address by the newly appointed agriculture minister of the state, Kumar Sarvajeet, is in line with the state’s action plan to help alleviate the financial burden of the farmers in the wake of the agrarian crisis since June.
Under the plan, Rs 700 per acre of land will be transferred to farmers to buy diesel for agricultural purposes, including irrigation.
The state's farmers, however, called this move an eyewash and a stop-gap arrangement that is not enough to improve the situation.
Bihar government July 28 had decided to provide diesel subsidies for agriculture use for the next three months, as the eastern state saw dry monsoons through most of the period from June to mid-July.
The new subsidy fund will be in addition to the Rs 100 crore the government has already allocated in July for the same purpose, a department official said.
The amount, the official claimed, will be the largest the state has ever allocated during a drought year for diesel subsidy for agriculture use.
Earlier this year, pleas by local agrarian experts for declaring Bihar as a drought state this year fell on deaf ears and there was no political will shown towards this, Down To Earth (DTE) reported in August this year.
We didn’t get any rain during the sowing and transplanting season of our most crucial crops, said Umesh, a big farmer from Masaurhi in Dhanarua, South Bihar. “And after July 20, we received untimely excess rainfall, which damaged the little paddy we were able to grow.”
How can the government’s answer to this year’s severe agrarian crisis be only a diesel subsidy, he asked, adding:
If they are claiming that such a subsidy will mitigate this crisis that has massively impacted almost all the districts of the agrarian state, it only reflects their inadequacy as policymakers, planners.
“This step is nothing but a hogwash, a stopgap arrangement at best,” the farmer said.
The scale of paddy cultivation across Bihar’s 17 districts was less than 10 per cent of the normal volume, ground volunteers and farmers told DTE on August 1. The districts included Jamui, Munger, Sheikhpura, Aurangabad, Bhojpur, Buxar, Jahanabad, Kaimur, Gaya, Nalanda and Saran.
“They keep boasting about diesel subsidies all the time. But how many farmers are aware of what amount the government has allocated and then how many of us receive it is the question that should be asked,” said Ramswarup, another farmer from South Bihar’s Gaya district. The farmer said his family has suffered loss of paddy crops over three acres of land since June.
Not more than 40 per cent of the farmers in Gaya has received the diesel subsidy the last time after the decision in this regard was taken in July, Parshuram Manjhi, a farmer from the district’s Mohanpur block. “Most of the subsidy amount is siphoned off by the middlemen and corrupt officers.”
This is the ground reality not just in Mohanpur but several other parts of Bihar, Manjhi added. “When the bare minimum (diesel subsidy) they are doing for farmers is not reaching the right beneficiaries, what expectation can we have from this government that has ignored glaring signs to declare Bihar a drought state?”
The departmen denied this accusation. “Of the Rs 100 crore subsidy amount allocated for diesel subsidy for agricultural use (in July), Rs 96.3 crore has already reached farmers across the 38 districts of Bihar,” said an official who wished to remian anonymous.
Very few Bihar farmers have an alternative occupation and a majority of the rural population is dependent on agriculture, said Umrao Yadav, a big farmer from Rajgirah village in Nitish Kumar's home district Nalanda.
“Diesel subsidy can by no means be a solution. If river water can't be efficiently channelised for irrigating the fields, what coping mechanism will help?” said the farmer.
“In the end, even more of us will be forced to migrate. But that's not a solution again,” he added.
In Bihar, about 88 per cent of the population (against the national average of 67 per cent) lives in villages.
“But will a government representative do a proper survey and find out how many farmers were benefited by the subsidy? No.” said Manjhi.
The deputy-director of the state’s agriculture department, Anil Kumar, told DTE that the farmers are going to benefit from the subsidy. The department may conduct a ground-level survey of the crisis, he added but didn’t provide any further details.
Some experts DTE spoke to were also doubted the efficacy of the measure in mitigating the agrarian crisis facing the state. Pradeep Priyadarshi, national vice-president of Ekta Parishad, a non-profit that works on agriculture, said:
About 50 per cent of the famers in Bihar rely on shared farming; they are not landowners. Most of the farmers who will benefit from this subsidy will be those who own a small or big portion of land.
Diesel subsidy is a legit move if it is properly disbursed but it cannot be a solution to an agrarian crisis, said RK Malik, a cropping systems agronomist.
In a lot of areas in Bihar and eastern UP, farmers could be facilitated by the government to be equipped for early sowing, the expert opined. “The government could probably organise a programme that promotes and facilitates the use of zero tillage machines.”
Umesh cited the example of Telangana, which supplies free and quality power round-the-clock to the agriculture sector, to highlight the kind of mitigation strategy the state could have adopted.
It is a reality that most of the farmers in Bihar are compelled to get access to electricity for agricultural purposes through illegal means, he said. “The diesel subsidy is denied to many by corrupt officers merely because they would claim farmers are not using diesel for tubewells and cultivating through other means.”
Linking rivers, making a plan for building check dams, utilising the abundant river water resource in the state and ensuring that it reaches the fields are other efforts he suggested.
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