Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, July 12: Collectors have an uphill task ahead of them to meet the input subsidy disbursement deadline of July 31 as the state government has provided only 47 per cent of the total input subsidy to farmers affected during last year’s drought though less than 20 days are left of the given time period.
“The collectors have been able to provide only 47 per cent of the total input subsidy to drought affected farmers so far,” special relief commissioner Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said Tuesday afternoon at the secretariat following a video conference held by Chief Secretary AP Padhi with all district collectors.
The state government has earmarked Rs 952 crore for input subsidy for drought-affected farmers, according to SRC sources. Of this, Rs 821.45 crore has already been sanctioned. However, only Rs 473.33 crore has been disbursed to affected farmers in 30 districts.
In three districts, the disbursal of input subsidy has been less than 10 per cent. The worst performing district is Nayagarh where only 2.17 per cent of the total subsidy has been disbursed to farmers. This is followed by Jajpur with 5.71 per cent and Cuttack with 5.77 per cent. The disbursement is only 20 per cent in Jagatsinghpur district.
Officials of these districts have been asked to expedite distribution, said Mohapatra.
Koraput is the best performing district with 99.21 per cent of the total subsidy being disbursed to affected farmers, SRC sources revealed.
Officials are not likely to be able to disburse subsidy by the deadline of July 31 the 53 per cent of subsidy that has yet not been disbursed. This is especially so as during the last month, collectors have been able to disburse only a little above Rs 50 crore to the affected farmers.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had, during the collectors’ conference held at the Secretariat in June, asked collectors to make sure that the disbursement is done by July 31.
Till June the collectors had disbursed Rs 419.55 crore. This figure is now Rs 473 crore.
So far 11.04 lakh drought-affected farmers have received input subsidy, SRC sources said.
Officials said that preparation of faulty list is causing delay in disbursement and is depriving actual farmers from availing
benefits.
The poor disbursement of -subsidy has taken a political overtone with opposition parties criticising the BJD government that had sought Rs 2,344 crore drought assistance from the Centre to help farmers overcome the situation.
However, BJD spokesperson Samir Ranjan Das said that the state government is taking all measures for maintaining transparency and said this has led to delay in disbursement of input subsidy to actual farmers.
