Govt to re-verify 29,343 beneficiaries compensated for not burning stubble
Re-verification of individual cases will be done at many levels by revenue, agri and cooperative depts
CHANDIGARH/LUDHIANA : The state government on Monday announced re-verification of 29,343 small and marginal farmers who were compensated for not burning crop residue.
The re-verification of the individual cases will be done at many levels by revenue, agriculture and cooperative departments, making it a cumbersome process.
Farmers owning 5 acres or less are to be paid a compensation of ₹2,500 per acre for not burning paddy residue. The government had disbursed over ₹19 crore among the farmers and the decision was taken after irregularities were detected.
Hindustan Times reported on Monday that the web-portal meant for paying compensation was hacked at two locations in Punjab. Last week, 1,985 entries from Nathu Majra village in Sangrur were found to be fake, when the village sarpanch clarified that there are not as many accounts of the farmers. Also, some dubious entries were found from Fazilka area.
The process of disbursing compensation was suspended following reports that many farmers, who in fact did burn the stubble, pocketed the compensation. Paddy was sown on about 58-lakh acres this season and 160-lakh tonne grain was harvested.
Additional chief secretary (development) Viswajeet Khanna said the order was issued for the re-verification of beneficiaries. “The web-portal was not really hacked. Someone borrowed the password and login from the secretary of the cooperative society and uploaded nearly 1,700 or 1,800 applications for compensation,” said Khanna.
On making the verification process fool-proof, Khanna said, “We have already sent the directions to the deputy commissioners.
Earlier, the verification process was offline and then it was uploaded, but as per the revised procedure it (the form for compensation) would flow from the portal itself to the patwari and the SDM concerned, who will check the veracity of the claim.” He did not rule out the possibility of undeserving farmers getting the compensation. “I am sure there will be some. We have ordered re-verification. Whosoever has claimed the compensation wrongly will have to refund the money and face the consequences,” he said.
The disbursals will restart when the portal gets active again, possibly later this week. Chief secretary will address the state’s revenue officers on Tuesday to explain the system.
“We have spruced up our system and will start disbursals very soon,” said secretary (agriculture) Kahan Singh Pannu.
The Apex court also asked and asked the state government to file a status report within week. In the rush of filing the report, and get a substantial number of farmers who got the financial support, disbursals were made without proper checks and balances.
CUMBERSOME NEW SYSTEM
As per the system, forms shall be collected from farmers by the panchayat secretary or sarpanch and after verification, counter signed by them. The panchayat secretary will share the forms with respective secretary of the primary agricultural cooperative society (PACS) for online data entry.
Panchayat secretary shall maintain the detailed record of crop residue burning Incidents of the village concerned and such record shall be made available to the sub-divisonal magistrate or the deputy commissioner.
The portal will aggregate records and redirect them to the patwari’s login for verification, who would verify total land of the
applicant, and the area on which non-basmati paddy was grown, besdies whether any area under the paddy crop was set on fire or not.
The portal will calculate the compensation of each farmer and submit it to the SDM’S login. SDM will verify the claim by ensuring
from remote sensing reports that the farmer hasn’t burnt any part of his non-basmati crop residue, and submit it to the DC for approval.
Deputy Commissioner will submit the cases to director agriculture for the release of compensation.