PATNA: Agriculture minister and RJD leader Sudhakar Singh on Sunday once again hit out at his own government’s policies by questioning the agriculture road maps, which the Nitish Kumar government has been over the years showcasing as a great initiative to transform the farm sector in Bihar.
Singh said that the statistics of the government itself indicate utter failure of the agriculture road maps in achieving their objectives on any count. “These are not my statistics. The figures of the agriculture department point to the failure of the roadmaps and there is no point continuing with them with taking required corrective measures. At least, as agriculture minister I cannot give extension to this road map. The government may make some other department the nodal department if it wants to extend the third agriculture road map beyond 2022,” he added.
The first agriculture road map was launched in 2008 with a small budget, while former President Pranab Mukhejee had launched the second agriculture roadmap in 2012 for the state with the aim of ushering in a ‘Rainbow Revolution’ in the state. In 2017, former President Ram Nath Kovind launched the third, which the NDA government in Bihar had decided to extend beyond 2022. Then, the agriculture ministry was with the BJP. The last two road maps for agriculture together had a budget of nearly ₹3-lakh crore.
Terming the second and third agriculture road maps as useless, Singh said he would like to get the last two road maps thoroughly probed. “After all, any such programme is launched with a specific target. When the second road map was launched, the total food grain production in the state was 177-lakh tonnes in 2012, while in 2022 it is 176 lakh tonnes, which is one lakh tonnes less. What benefit has such huge investment in road maps done? I was telling it before becoming the minister, when I did not have access to data, and now with the data available I see the same situation,” he added.
The agriculture minister said that he had said the same thing in the cabinet meeting also, which many of his colleagues did not like. “But I cannot negate the bitter truth. In one decade since the launch of the second agriculture road map, the population of the state must have gone up by around 20-25%, as per previous trends. India is ranked 123rd on Hunger index. Where will Bihar stand? What arrangements have we made to feed the additional 20-25% population? Does it not indicate reduction in per capita food grain consumption in the state? Imagine that we are taking pride in making ethanol from food grains, when food grain production is falling. But I don’t want to get into that. They bitter facts speak for themselves and they will have to be accepted and swallowed, whether one likes it or not,” he added.
Maintaining that the road maps had not been able to serve any purpose for the farmers, he said they could neither contribute to any significant growth in production nor in the income of the farmers. “I will get the road maps probed by an independent agency. I am not here to be a minister just to overlook everything and sign on the dotted lines,” said the firebrand leader, who had trigged a storm a few weeks ago by describing the officials in his department “as thieves”.
Singh, son of state RJD president Jagtanand Singh, has been consistently rubbing the Nitish Kumar government the wrong way by questioning the government policies, but he said it was not his intention. “My intention is only to point out the fallacies and strive for corrective measures. If at all a fourth road map is required, that will have to undergo thorough scrutiny. A Krishi Karman Puruskar cannot reflect the ground realities. There is a difference between cultivation of data and real agriculture. Bihar is staring at a horrific reality and turn eyes away at this point can be disastrous,” he said.
He said that he would prefer being the voice of the farmers, as he himself was one among them and the farmers had expectations from him to change the status quo. “I am saying what the statistics say. The fact is that the performance of the agriculture road maps is disappointing in the last 10 years. The new roadmaps should be started only after learning from the past deficiencies, else there is no purpose of spending such huge amount,” he added.
