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State’s paddy slip showing by Pranesh Sarkar

Two of the three Bengal agencies tasked with procuring paddy directly from farmers have failed to do so till now because of lack of funds, a revelation that blunts the state government’s attempt to blame the Centre.

Paddy procurement is one of the purported issues over which the Congress and the Trinamul Congress have been calling each other names. The state government had pointed fingers at the Centre-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) for poor rice procurement, which has been blamed for some of the farm suicides in Bengal.

However, enquiries by The Telegraph revealed that Benfed and Confed, the two state-run agencies, had not lifted any stocks because they had not been allocated any cash till the controversy erupted. Between them, the two agencies need Rs 85 crore to buy their quota of 2 lakh tonnes of paddy from farmers at a prescribed price. The agencies convert the procured paddy into rice and sell it to the food department.

“The situation has turned critical primarily because Benfed and Confed, which were given the responsibility to procure paddy on behalf of the food and supplies department, could not start the exercise as they have not been allotted a single rupee yet,” an official said on Friday morning.

Bengal’s festering financial crisis, which Mamata inherited from the Left and which has so far shown no signs of ebbing in the absence of hard decisions, is at the root of the problem. But it is also clear that procurement has become an administrative football, kicked from one cash-strapped ministry to another.

The third agency — the Essential Commodities Supply Corporation — has been allotted Rs 35 crore by the state food and supplies department because the corporation is registered with it. The corporation’s total target is 6 lakh tonnes.

But Benfed and Confed are registered with the state co-operation department, because of which the food and supplies department has washed its hands of funding the two agencies. Both the ministries are headed by the Trinamul Congress, not by ally Congress.

This evening, Benfed and Confed were allotted a total of Rs 25 crore to procure paddy. The benefactor that came to the aid of the orphaned duo is a third ministry — the aptly named disaster management department headed by Javed Khan of Trinamul.

The agencies need another Rs 60 crore to meet the full procurement requirement.

Food and supplies minister Jyoti Priya Mallick said: “Benfed and Confed have not been able to start the paddy procurement process.”

But he added: “If they don’t have funds, the co-operation department should provide the money as they are registered with that department.”

Co-operation minister Haider Aziz Safwi, however, said: “The agencies are registered with the co-operation department but these are procuring paddy on behalf of the food and supplies department. So, why should our department provide money to these agencies?”

Cash did not suddenly dry up for Benfed and Confed. Rather, they reaped a crisis whose seeds were sown by the Left in end-2010.

Benfed and Confed had then taken Rs 320 crore in loans from co-operative banks — the usual source of funds for the two agencies — to procure potato and save the then government from a glut-induced backlash.

That operation had saddled the agencies with a loss of Rs 150 crore, which made loan repayment difficult. Fingers burnt, the banks are now refusing to give more loans.

“The state government has set a target of procuring 20 lakh tonnes of paddy and rice from the farmers and mill owners by September. But so far, only about 2 lakh tonnes have been procured,” an official of the co-operation department said.

Several months are left before September but the real test will come sooner in February-March — the peak procurement season. If the procurement volumes do not swell by then, agrarian Bengal will be staring at a crisis.

In order to fulfil the procurement target, around Rs 840 crore will be needed, part of which will be borne by the FCI.

Of the 20 lakh tonnes of paddy, 9 lakh tonnes will be procured directly from farmers. The remaining 11 lakh tonnes will be collected as rice from the mills, mostly by the FCI that does not buy paddy.

Mallick said the FCI had been slow in lifting rice but expressed the hope that the pace would pick up now. He had a meeting with FCI officials today.

The government has also announced a subsidy scheme to help farmers transport the paddy to rice mills. Transportation cost is a big factor that compels farmers to sell paddy at lower prices to middlemen.