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Nabcons, the agency tasked with verifying whether farmers who signed up for the Centre’s flagship micro-irrigation scheme got its benefits, has asked the Jharkhand agriculture department to withdraw an FIR blaming the firm for irregularities in the scheme’s implementation.
The Indian Express had in June reported that the scheme’s benefits were not reaching many farmers in Jharkhand. Following the investigation, the state’s agriculture department had initiated an inquiry in all 24 districts. Based on a complaint by the Hazaribagh District Agriculture Officer, an FIR was also registered against Nabcons and its employees for alleged dereliction of duty and cheating and causing loss to the exchequer.
Nabcons, a subsidiary of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), has now stated that the identification of farmers, generation of application, submission of land holdings and installation of micro-irrigation systems is the “primary responsibility” of the agriculture department.
In a letter to the agriculture department on June 19, Nabcons Jharkhand vice-president Suman Saurav Sahoo wrote: “It has come to our knowledge from an article in The Indian Express dated June 15 that an FIR has been lodged in Ichak police station of Hazaribagh district against Nabcons and its field monitors… The FIR alleges that Nabcons did not discharge its duties properly… You will agree that identification of farmers, generation of application, submission of land details and installation of the micro-irrigation system at the site is the primary responsibility of the department of agriculture and not that of Nabcons.” The letter was marked to Agriculture Director Chandan Kumar.
In an investigation spanning a month-and-a-half and tracking 94 farmers in three blocks in Hazaribagh, The Indian Express had found that for most, benefits were only on paper. Among the findings were misuse of Aadhaar cards to create beneficiaries and some farmers not even aware that money had been collected by private companies in their name.
Nabcons wrote that the applications of beneficiaries are generated by empanelled vendors and uploaded by people to a portal; details of land holding and identity of beneficiaries is confirmed by the mukhiya; and installation of the system at the site is the primary responsibility of the agriculture department.
“As you are aware, Nabcons informs the schedule of physical verifications well in advance to the concerned DAO through emails. Field monitors also request the concerned DAO or his officials to accompany him during the site verification. However, it is observed that usually the district officials do not accompany the field monitors during field verification exercises,” the letter said.
Nabcons added that the beneficiary, vendor and agriculture department are aware of the plot of land for which the system has been sanctioned, and field monitors do not have any mechanism to cross-verify the land holdings.
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