Ensure direct online payment to farmers for rabi crop, Piyush Goyal writes to Punjab CM

The Centre has made online direct payment to farmers mandatory for the upcoming Rabi wheat procurement season.

File image Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal | Photo: ANI

New Delhi: Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal has written a fresh letter to Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh asking for implementation of the direct and online payment system for farmers in the upcoming rabi wheat procurement season starting from 10 April.

The letter, seen by ThePrint, argued that all major wheat procuring states have already implemented this payment system and have even moved ahead for biometric authentication of farmers at the time of procurement.

The minister also said in the letter that the chairman and managing director of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), during a recent visit to the region, found that while Punjab is yet to do anything on this front, neighbour Haryana has made complete preparations for direct and online payment to farmers, integrating their land records via e-procurement portal.

According to senior food ministry officials familiar with the matter, the letter sent last week also pointed out that the land records are already available with the Punjab revenue department and are just required to be integrated with the state’s Anaj Kharid portal after verification by revenue officials before the rabi season.

The Punjab government has earlier cited the tenancy issue as a hurdle before this integration, arguing that the absentee landlord could face the problem of titleship if their land is cultivated on lease by tenants and is recorded as such.

An estimated 50 per cent of the state’s farmers offer their land on lease, and it is feared that not all tillers have the required documents. Since all farm land owners are not cultivating their respective lands, providing their bank accounts would not help because the payment of the minimum support price (MSP) should go to the cultivator and not the owner.

Referring to this, Goyal’s letter suggested that Punjab implement the Haryana model in which the detail of tenant or sharecropper can be uploaded on the portal with a disclaimer that this would be a legal document for claiming ownership of land through tenancy.

‘Spirit of cooperative federalism’

The minister said in his letter the Department of Food and Public Distribution remains committed to the welfare of Punjab’s farmers and people, as he cited the instance of the FCI coming to Punjab’s rescue when it lifted 22.42 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of stranded foodgrain from rabi marketing season 2018-19 that expired on 30 December 2020.

With the Reserve Bank of India refusing to extend the deadline for Punjab to exhaust the stock, the Rs 89,290 crore worth of wheat would have become a non-performing asset by 31 March 2021.

Goyal said the FCI and Railways prioritised the evacuation of foodgrain from Punjab, due to which 18.82 LMT out of a total of 22.42 LMT was lifted by 19 March.

The minister said this was an act “in the spirit of cooperative federalism”, as he sought CM Amarinder’s cooperation in implementing the Centre’s policy towards implementation of the system of making payment of the MSP directly into the farmer’s account and compliance with the public financial management system.

This is to be done under the Central Plan Scheme Monitoring System that tracks funds released under all Plan schemes of the Government of India and real-time reporting of expenditure at all levels of implementation.

The Punjab CM has written to the prime minister and the Union food minister in the past, expressing the state’s inability to comply with the instructions, and seeking the PM’s intervention to defer the decisions for one year.

Addressing the state assembly last month, he said the direct payment order was “another provocation that will further aggravate the current crisis over the farm laws”.

The central government has been trying to implement the direct payment system for farmers since 2012. However, in Punjab and Haryana, where arhatiyas have vociferously opposed the system, the old system continued for years afterwards.