And hes not exactly working on a thank-you farewell speech.
In the charts Tiwari sends every quarter to Krishi Bhawan, one figure is an immediate giveaway of whats wrong: almost each year, states are only able to utilize just a third of the funds sent to them for promotion of pulses. A sum of Rs 5000 crore has been spent on the Governments mission on pulses which began in 1990 and was upgraded to ISOPOM in 2003.
Tiwari has waved countless red flags on whats going wrong from glaring gaps in supply of seeds and micronutrients to the lack of marketing infrastructure and post-harvest technologies but hes not sure if his bosses in New Delhi have even read them.
One reason he thinks hes not been heard is hierarchy. His rank he is not an IAS officer is several rungs below that of the Commissioner in the state Agriculture department, the man responsible for actually implementing this programme. To monitor progress, Tiwari has to interact with Chief Secretaries and Joint Secretary-level officials. The unwritten code that non-IAS officers cant monitor work of IAS officers has tied his hands down.
There is no level playing field in whatever I do, says Tiwari. The Fifth Pay Commission had recommended that a Central Agriculture Service be created to circumvent these situations and strengthen agriculture administration a proposal that never took off.
Tiwaris problems find an echo outside as well. We have found out that the programme is not working for pulses. It has to be a systems approach right from the dissemination of seeds to marketing. There has to be a thorough evaluation, says M S Swaminathan, chairman, Farmers Commission, and member of Rajya Sabha.
The Indian Express obtained several monitoring reports sent this year that highlight why ISOPOM, a programme meant to break the pulse yield barrier, stuck at 500 kg/hectare for 20 years, has made little impact:
Seeds:
Despite a large push in the form of subsidy for making quality seeds, seed replacement rate nationwide remains at a dismal average of 10-15 per cent. This means farmers are planting old seeds or are buying uncertified seeds from the market.
The State Seed Corporation has a major role to play but despite the Rs 1,000 incentive given to each farmer for multiplying breeder seeds, less than half have been covered. Andhra Pradesh has a 15% seed replacement rate whereas Madhya Pradesh has barely 2%.
This despite the fact that, according to a field inspection report, Madhya Pradesh is the largest recipient of seed minikits for oilseeds and pulses all these years. Minikits contains new varieties of seeds for less than a hectare of land for farmers to try out in his field.
The demonstration of seed minikits programme lacks seriousness both in distribution and demonstration and the mechanism of performance evaluation, says the report. The team came across a list of minikit beneficiary in Ujjain which was prepared without actually delivering the goods to the farmers.
Infrastructure:
The Centre gives money for providing sprinkler sets, pipes and setting up infrastructure for threshing, drying, seed-processing and grading. Apart from Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu, most states have not even used 30% of the total funds provided under this head. States like Gujarat, Haryana and Karnataka have used nothing at all. Rajasthan does not even bother to report progress on this despite several reminders from the Directorate.
No states were able to provide figures on how much additional area had increased as a result of use of sprinklers.
Integrated Pest Management:
Biopesticides in several states have been found to be spurious. Rhizobium, a micronutrient that can increase the
yield by 20-30 per cent, is not even available in most places. In the absence of a technological breakthrough that can make pulse crop resistant to insects, these steps are the best bet to increase the yield.
Manpower:
The programme has created and placed several officers to monitor developmental progress. For example, Rajasthan had 55 posts and Madhya Pradesh had 67. However, nobody at the Centre is monitoring their work as they get shunted to routine agricultural jobs over time.
To make matters worse, the state extension service has effectively collapsed with one third posts lying vacant. On an average, each state has one extension officer for every 100 square km. They are the ones who are supposed to appraise farmers of new sowing practices or new seeds that come out from the Indian Institute of Pulses Research. Visits to the field to talk to farmers are few and far between. Says Swaminathan: The links in the chain are missing. It is not really a mission as it was meant to be.