Each year, paddy farce only grows worse

Kuljit Bains

Paddy in Punjab is as fascinating a subject as it is debilitating. From being responsible for sucking dry the earth in the state; to completely taking over the farmers’ idea of agriculture; destroying the state government’s finances; and now even skewing the Centre’s food economy; it is a story of contradictions in being the most popular crop that has even been rewarded with a substantial hike in the support price. The latest scam to surface of fake procurement has only painted a fresh coat of criminality on it.

As reported in The Tribune on Sunday, false procurement of the crop has been shown on the online facility of food agencies with the connivance of arhtiyas, millers and government officials. It was a cosy arrangement between all characters involved, and therefore no one to raise a red flag. Even now only the tip of what may be an iceberg floating silently since years has been detected.

While there is corruption in every conceivable activity that involves money, paddy is a particularly vulnerable target. For one, there is the huge volume of the commodity and money, and then there is the surfeit of agencies involved, from the arhtiya to the procurement official and the miller. All have a stake in joining hands to rob the farmer as well as the government. The most fundamental source of corruption – and a variety of other travails of the farmer – is the arhtiya. The irony is that this agent of misery is one entity that is completely superfluous to the system, and yet continues to succeed in portraying himself as indispensable. And arhtiyas have had the tacit support of government after government in the state, no matter what proposal of bypassing them is devised by the mother procurement agency, the Food Corporation of India.

It is, of course, no surprise that many arhtiyas are also political creatures, or finance politics of the ruling party of the day. Their vice-like grip on farmers is best told in the sad tales of those committing suicide because of the huge debts owed to arhtiyas, who are running a virtual serfdom.

The just-concluded season of paddy portrayed how completely the entire agriculture policy has tied itself in knots. Many well-intentioned interventions by the government ended up making it perhaps one of the most difficult Kharif seasons for farmers. It started with a delay in the permitted date of paddy transplantation to save water. Many farmers could not arrange the required short-duration seed variety. Then came the valid demand of not burning the crop residue, even if for a misplaced goal of preventing smog in Delhi, for which it is only peripherally responsible. But the requirement sent the farmers in a tizzy, with many struggling today to sow their next wheat crop in time to avoid suffering loss in that too. The delayed sowing of paddy has left the produce with high moisture content now, and the agencies don’t want to procure it, bringing angry farmers on the road. The monsoon that continued beyond date only added to the misery.

That was only the farmers’ end. The governments’ – both state and Central – condition may be even worse because of paddy. Punjab is paying more than Rs 200 crore every month to the Centre towards what has been declared as dues (plus interest) on account of ‘missing paddy’, mostly procured during SAD-BJP rule. The latest scam unearthed may partly explain the missing paddy – it was perhaps never procured, but the price was paid.

The consequences of growing paddy for the groundwater of Punjab and the tubewell bills paid by the state are only too well known to repeat. Yet, the mind-numbing irony is that paddy this year was rewarded with a massive jump in the support price, something neither the state government nor the farmer would object to. The Kharif prices have obviously disturbed the Centre’s finances, too, which is desperately looking to find ways to finance its development plans.

The combined body of intellectuals of Punjab, the political leadership, even the farm leadership, and the bureaucracy, all need to hang their head in shame for not just letting the agro-economy to come to such a pass but, worse, continuing to promote it.