Rs 274 cr spent on diversification, but paddy area up 7.18% in five years: CAG

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 29

Even after having spent

Rs 274 crore on crop diversification, area under paddy increased by 7.18 per cent in five years (2014-19), a latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has revealed.

The report tabled in the Vidhan Sabha today found that the Departments of Soil, Agriculture, Farmers Welfare and Water Conservation had “under-performed” in restoring the ecological balance of soil and water conservation for sustainable agriculture despite spending Rs 699.24 crore on various schemes.

The trend is adversely affecting the consumption of groundwater. To improve soil fertility and arrest the depletion of groundwater, a target to divert 1.40 lakh hectare paddy area (at least five per cent of the area under paddy in identified blocks) with alternate crops during 2013-14 was fixed.

However, it was noticed that the sown area of paddy increased by 7.18 per cent during 2014-15 to 2018-19 and the sown area of other crops decreased by 13.49 per cent to 38.02 per cent from 2014-15 to 2018-19.

It happened despite spending Rs 273.73 crore during 2014-19, the state could not achieve the intended objective of diverting the area from paddy to alternate crops. Rather, area under paddy increased.

Consequently, over-exploited blocks had increased from 76 per cent to 79 per cent against the national average from 16 to 17 per cent during 2014-17, defeating the objective of arresting the depletion of groundwater through the crop diversification programme.

“Due to inefficient implementation of crop diversification programme, the area covered under oilseeds (kharif) decreased (48 per cent) from 8,000 hectares to 4,200 hectares, and production reduced (40 per cent) from 5,700 tonne to 3,400 tonne, which would necessitate additional import/procurement of oilseeds,” the CAG report read.

The import of oilseeds had, in fact, increased by 25 per cent from 14.69 million tonne to 18.41 million tonne, during 2014-19, indicating at increased gap between demand and production.

Soil health card scheme ‘ineffective’

The implementation of the soil health card scheme remained ineffective due to inefficient flow of funds, and deficient planning for providing financial assistance for recommended nutrients.

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