The Odisha Government has decided to include six Rabi crops such as paddy, ground nut, mustard, potato, black gram and green gram under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFSY) for 2016-17 Rabi agricultural season.
This is an expansion of PMFSY, lunched in Odisha, from Kharif 2016 cultivation season. The crop insurance will cover loss of standing crops, sowing risk, post harvest damages and other local risks. While in case of paddy insurance, gram panchayat has been taken as unit of crop loss, in case of other crops it is the block. The State Government is expected to issue notification and select insurance companies by the end of October.
While the State Government is hoping for inclusion of farmers in Rabi season insurance scheme, the non-payment of crop insurance to last year’s drought -hit farmers is feared to dampen the interest of the farmers. Unless the State Government makes arrangements to ensure payment of last year’s crop insurance within two to three weeks as promised by Co-operation Minister Damodar Rout in Assembly, there will be low level of famers’ participation. Besides, on the basis of last year’s experience of hurdles in assessing panchayat level crop loss, a system should be developed to ensure effective paddy crop data management of Rabi insurance covered panchayats so that faster compensation can be made in case of crop loss.
Besides paddy, the State Government should encourage maximum insurance coverage in other five Rabi crops where compensation payment procedure is faster due to adoption of block as a unit of crop loss. But it is not clear why the State Government did not cover onion under the Rabi crop insurance which would have benefitted the farmers of western Odisha. The State Government should start preparation to cover more crops in the forthcoming 2017 Kharif season under PMFSY, especially minor millets which are grown in tribal packets. Coverage of tribal area crops under crop-insurance is possible now-a-days as panchayat has been taken as a unit. The State Government can also think of its own crop-insurance schemes. Expansion of crop insurance in a perennially disaster prone State like Odisha shall not only check farmer’s suicide, but also encourage agriculture entrepreneurship. However, in the recently amended Odisha Electricity (duty) Ordinance, there has been no provision of free electricity to farmers.
The Government has undertaken two more pro-people decisions. It has passed the long awaited Odisha Official language (amendment) Bill 2016 to show that it is committed to popularization of Odia language as a regional party by passing the Act which was pending for decades in the State. While BJD took political mileage from the Act, the Opposition criticized the Act as toothless against violators. The State Government also amended the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors Act in the Assembly to define “small investors” to give them relief from the State Government declared corpus fund before the panchayat election to harvest political benefits, like the way TMC did in West Bengal during last Assembly poll there.
While the State Government repeatedly accuses the Center of slashing assistance and boasts its operational efficiency in implementing various programmes, the reply of the Planning and Convergence Department in the current Assembly Session shows that the Government is not able to spend the money allotted in the Budget. This is what the Center alleges against the Odisha Government as a counter to the Central negligence charge by the BJD. To a question of Dilip Ray, the Minister Planning and Convergence reportedly replied that the Government could not use Rs 26, 406 crore of its own planned Budget and Rs 1,730 crore of the Central allocation between financial year 2012-13 and 2015-16. Similarly, Rs 30,832 crore of unplanned allocation of State Budget could not be utilized.
The slow utilisation is due to lack of follow-up and monitoring as evident from ground situations. While reviewing the progress of construction work under Odisha Disaster Recovery Project (ODRP) for Subalaya and Sanramchandrapur villages, the Ganjam Collector was surprised on last Wednesday to see the slow progress of work due to land problem and an urgent need for more monitoring efforts by the district administration. How many years should it take to complete cyclone or flood disaster recovery projectsIJ But the Planning and Convergence Department can play an important role in ensuring monitoring of schemes for speedy funds utilization. The Minister should not end her responsibility with answers in Assembly but should take up responsibility to undertake measures to declare Odisha as a “cent per cent fund utilization State”.
District plans have been prepared in the State since 2008-09 and the annual district plans have been incorporated into the State Annual Plan since 2010-11. District Planning Committees (DPCs) and Districts Planning and Monitoring Units (DPMUs) have been formed in all districts of the State. The State has created Poverty and Human Development Monitoring Agency (PHDMA) to monitor poverty and human development indicators in Odisha. There has been also establishment of an Agency for Reporting on Agricultural Statistics (EARAS) with 100 per cent Central assistance, being implemented in the State through the Directorate of Economics and Statistics since 1976-77. The objective of the scheme is to estimate area, yield rate and production of the major crops like paddy at Block level and 12 important minor crops at district level. But in spite of all such mechanisms, there is under-utilization of the Budget.
What are the reasons for underutilization of fundsIJ Is it political or bureaucratic or hard utilization rules or non-convergence among departments or lack of capacity of implementers or lack of public demand for developmentIJ It appears that there is inter-play of all the above factors. There is low public demand for development. While there is increase in anti-liquor protests in Odisha, the State Excise Minister said in the Assembly that liquor shops doubled in the State between 2001-02 and 2015-16. People are used to coping with mechanisms in time of distress than to revolt. On the other hand, there is low entrepreneurship capacity at the district level to undertake project work and complete within set time with quality. Bureaucrats at lower level often hesitate to take risks due to fear of corruptions.
Though budget writing has been changed from “output” to “outcome” orientation, the Planning and Convergence Department is not helping other departments to write “outcome” reports which are no other than impact annual reports. Once true outcome/impact reports are prepared, the responsibility for failures can be fixed. Finally, it is the ruling political party which is responsible for breaking the inertia of stagnation and the State Government must activate block level monitoring system.
