ONGOLE: Farmers are not able to get Bengal gram seed being supplied at 50 per cent subsidy by the government due to faulty delivery system.

As the government has made ham-handed arrangements for identifying Bengal gram farmers, large quantities of seed are being diverted to the black-market, making it a bonanza for brokers, commission agents and officials.

The Andhra Pradesh Seeds Development Corporation has positioned 60,700 tonnes of the seed for supply through 12 Agricultural Market Committees in Prakasam district. The Agriculture Department has issued permits for supply of 25 kg seed to each farmer. But it has no mechanism to identify farmers raising Bengal gram.

No record

Village secretaries are not keeping proper record of crops raised in the `adangal', a village land record. So, agricultural officials are issuing permits on the basis of passbooks, which show only the extent of land owned by farmers but give no details about the crops they grow.

So farmers are given permits without any verification whether they actually raise Bengal gram or not in their field. Brokers are collecting passbooks from farmers who do not raise Bengal gram on some payment and use them to take delivery of the seed. Such seed is being sold to commission agents who garner the stocks for sale at higher price.

Kandukur MLA M. Mahidhara Reddy feels that misuse is inevitable if there is subsidy. "It can be reduced if agricultural officials conduct field studies and make record of farmers raising Bengal gram for supplying subsidised seed next year," he says.

Manpower shortage

But agricultural officials contend that they do not have the manpower for such surveys to identify nearly 10,000 farmers raising Bengal gram in each mandal. Another reason for diversion is the inability of the government to supply seed chosen by the farmers.

Most of the farmers want to raise Kak 2 variety seed. But the government supplies only 10,000 quintals of the variety.

It has supplied 47,445 quintals of Annagiri and 2,550 quintals of Mexican bold, which are least preferred. So genuine farmers are not taking the seed supplied by the government and it is finding its way to the black market, giving the benefit of subsidy more to brokers than farmers.

In this background, officials have seized huge stocks of Bengal gram seed in Guntur district from a commission agent and found out that he procured the seed from five cold storage units in Prakasam district.

"But how to find out whether it is subsidised seed or private seed?" ask agricultural officials.

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