PERSPECTIVE: Loopholes on MFMB portal, farmers’ funds siphoned off
Deepender Deswal
Hisar, March 10
Scams and financial frauds on the portal set up for farmers to avail the benefits of the various schemes of the state Agriculture Department have exposed the laxity in their implementation.
The ‘Meri Fasal Mera Byora’ (MFMB) portal was launched in 2019 to digitise the crop records of the cultivators/farmers and extend the benefits to the eligible farmers in an efficient and hassle-free manner. However, the portal seems to have turned into a tool for tech-savvy fraudsters, who commit financial fraud and siphon off money by misusing the data uploaded on it.
In the Bhavantar Bharpai Yojana (BBY), which aims to compensate the bajra-producing farmers in case of underpriced sale of the produce in mandis, the fraudsters have exploited the loopholes on the MFMB portal, which is the main source of data for the disbursal of the benefit to the farmers.
The state had fixed Rs 2,500 per quintal as the minimum support price (MSP) of bajra in the kharif season 2023. Since government agencies procured bajra at Rs 2,250 and Rs 2,200 per quintal, the government has proposed to pay Rs 250 and Rs 300 per quintal to farmers on the basis of the bajra registration on the portal.
However, to fraudulently claim the benefits under the yojana, the online swindlers registered themselves on the portal, hiding their real identities and registering themselves as tenants/farmers without the actual owners/farmers knowing about it. An initial inquiry found that racketeers adopted a simple modus operandi to register their names, mobile phone numbers and bank account numbers (for direct benefit transfer-DBT) to siphon off the government funds, thereby leaving the actual beneficiaries high and dry.
The fraud occurred despite the provision of a triple-verification process compiled by Agriculture Department, WebHalris (Haryana Land Record Information System) and the satellite imagery provided by Haryana Space Applications Centre (HARSAC). There is even a provision to withhold the verification in case of data mismatch of any of these two agencies.
Ram Kumar, retired Director of the extension of Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) and whistleblower of the scam, said, “Anybody can register any piece of land in the state in their name without the consent or information of the actual owner of the land by choosing the option of ‘tenant’ on this portal. This is a major loophole. Surprisingly, there are certain villages where the area on which crops (bajra) were sown was registered more than the total landholding of that particular village.”
“It raises several questions on the entire system as the portal requires the land record (like khasra number of the land) during the registration process that is taken from WebHalris on the official website of the state government for the land record documents. How is it be possible for the portal to accept the excessive data of land in any village?” he asked.
Estimating the scam to the tune of nearly Rs 200 crore under the BBY, Kumar said, “During the kharif season 2023, a total of 3,96,637 farmers had registered their bajra crop on 17.77 lakh acres of land. Upon the completion of the verification process, the Agriculture Department had verified the bajra crop in 13.39 lakh acres as registered by 3,75,498 farmers. Calculating the average yield of eight quintals per acre, there should be a total yield of 10.71 lakh metric tonnes of bajra in Haryana. The two government agencies — HAFED and Haryana Warehouse Corporation — procured 3.67 lakh metric tonnes of bajra in all. Where are the remaining 7.04 lakh metric tonnes of bajra?”
He said it was clear that fake/false registration of the bajra crop was being carried out on the portal to claim the BBY benefits. He had written several letters to the higher authorities, demanding a probe in the matter.
In Bhiwani district, 10 FIRs have been registered in different police stations since last year. The farmers of Pahari, Chahad Kalan, Mandoli Kalan, Jhulli, Saral, Dariyapur, Miran, Badsi and Ghuskani had filed FIRs in the police stations of Loharu, Bahal, Tosham, Siwani and Bhiwani Sadar. According to the police, these FIRs were related to the BBY scams that took place in 2022, when the fraudsters had availed the benefits of the scheme. “These farmers came to know that someone else had got the compensation under the BBY months after the direct benefit transfer (DBT) by the government,” said an official. Another farmer from Kitalan village in Bhiwani had also recently lodged a complaint, stating that someone else had registered for his crop on the portal. It is 11th such FIR related to the scam.
A CM flying team, which investigated one of the cases, revealed that as per the revenue records, the bajra crop was sown on 902 acres of land in Miran village in Bhiwani. However, around 1,923 acres of land having the crop were registered on the portal. “Apparently, the registration of 1,121 acres was carried out fraudulently to avail the benefits,” it concluded. “Similarly, in Dariyapur village, 2,246 acres of land was registered in excess of the actual bajra area by 185 persons, who were not even the residents of the village,” the team revealed. The fraud is suspected to have started in 2021, when the government had announced the yojana for bajra farmers. In 2021, Rs 439 crore was released to 2,42,518 farmers when bajra was sown on 8.35 lakh acres and the estimated yield was 7.32 lakh metric tonnes. In 2022, the government again provided a total of Rs 390 crore as compensation under the yojana to 2,76,620 farmers when the estimated production of bajra was 8.67 lakh metric tonnes and the area was 10 lakh acres. “While the cases under investigation in Bhiwani district exposed the scam that occurred in 2022, the available data indicates that it seems to have gotten bigger during the next year,” Kumar said.
Bhiwani SP Varun Singla, who is overseeing the investigation in the BBY fraud cases, said they had procured the data related to six villages from the Agriculture Department. “We got data about the number of beneficiaries under the Bhavantar scheme in these villages. Now, we have sought data from HARLIS, HARSAC and Agriculture Department. Afterwards, we will have to process the entire data to find out whether there was goof up by someone or some error on part of the portal,” he said. The SP said they had arrested some persons and the investigation is continuing.
Meanwhile, Kumar said the involvement of those responsible for operating the entire system could not be ruled out. “It requires a thorough investigation to find out the culprits. Even Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had himself exposed the Farmers-Producer-Organisation-related scam during an interaction with the farmers,” he said, adding that he hoped that the government would act tough on the accused and ensure that the benefits were extended to the actual beneficiaries,” he said.
