BHUBANESWAR: The Naveen Patnaik govt had disbursed more than Rs 782 crore to 12.72 lakh ineligible beneficiaries under Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (Kalia), the flagship cash incentive scheme for farmers launched ahead of the 2019 elections, the latest CAG report has revealed.
The report, tabled in the assembly on Wednesday, also pointed out lack of planning in rolling out the scheme and undue favour shown by the govt to a software company, whose service was taken to launch the scheme.
The scheme was highly effective in securing farmers’ support for the BJD in the 2019 elections.
The audit report said during the initial two years since its launch in 2018, the govt gave Kalia assistance to 65.64 lakh beneficiaries between 2019-20 and 2020-21. However, around 9.76 lakh were identified ineligible during one stage of implementation and another 2.96 lakh were found not eligible at a subsequent stage.
“That is why instalments of the aid were released thrice to 41.64 lakh beneficiaries, twice to 8.09 lakh beneficiaries and only once to 15.91 lakh beneficiaries. There are remote chances of recovery made to the ineligible persons,” the audit watchdog said.
The CAG also said payment of Rs 107.64 crore was released to 1.28 lakh account holders in which the names were different from that of the beneficiaries, indicating payment to unauthorised persons.
‘Identify eligible farmers properly’
During its launch, the govt had promised Rs 5,000 per family per crop season for five crop seasons and Rs 12,500 to landless farm labourers in three years.
The CAG recommended developing a robust mechanism to identify eligible farmers after proper identification, ensure development of IT application based on approved user requirement and system requirement specifications, ensure all DBT payments are made based on Aadhaar payment bridge system and validate the bank accounts of eligible beneficiaries before releasing payment. It also recommended recovery of payment from ineligible beneficiaries under the Kalia scheme.
The CAG said due to lack of preparedness in planning, the agriculture department did not ensure the feasibility of implementation of the scheme owing to which out of six components under Kalia scheme approved by the govt, only two components – ‘support to cultivators for cultivation’ and ‘livelihood support for landless agricultural households’ – were implemented during 2018-21. The two components – ‘financial assistance to vulnerable agricultural households’ and ‘interest-free crop loan’ – were dropped.
The remaining two components – ‘life insurance support to cultivators and landless agricultural labourers’ and ‘Kalia scholarship’ – were under the planning stage even after more than two years from the commencement of the scheme.