BHABUA: Agriculture minister and RJD MLA Sudhakar Singh once again took potshots at the Nitish Kumar-led government on Sunday alleging that officers in his department were corrupt and are taking ₹25,000 to ₹50,000 as bribes and that they will be tamed soon.
Addressing a farmer’s seminar at Bhagwanpur in Kaimur district, Singh said, “ A weight and measurement department officer took 10 liters of petrol in his car at a petrol pump and asked the staff to make a note on a register when the latter demanded money. The officer was suspended when the matter came to my cognizance. An honest officer is coming in his place. But you have to beat him with shoes whenever he appears,” the agriculture minister said.
“Their thrones start shaking from Patna to Delhi when I narrated the sufferings of farmers. I am asked to resign. Why should I resign? You have the power. Sack me if there is power in your pen”, Singh said.
The minister said that subsidy has become a disease and it will be ended soon. “Now this amount would be spent on making Bajar Samiti and Mandi,” Singh said, adding that four mandis would be opened in Kaimur’s Adhaura block.
He said that the Seed Corporation had given fake paddy seeds to farmers resulting in premature fruiting and very poor-quality crop. “The entire matter would be probed within a week and strict action would be taken against the culprits,” he said.
Singh said that the entire system had dilapidated in the last 17 years and he was soon coming up with a dozen schemes for the benefit of the farmers to improve it.
He said that at least 3,000 fertilizer shops, doing wrong practices, had been seized during his one-month tenure.
Singh said that he will soon launch an app that would provide all information to the farmers regarding the amount of fertilizer available in each shop.
“It will take time to fix the entire system, but the basic problems of farmers will be solved in the next three years, and their income will be doubled”, Singh said.
Earlier, while talking to the media, the agriculture minister had said that the state government’s second and third agriculture road maps had failed and farmers had got no benefit. He said that the first agriculture road map was of ₹6,000 crore, the second of ₹150,000 crore, and third of ₹100,000 crore.
He said that an institute from outside Bihar would make a social and economic study of both the road maps and find out the reasons behind their not achieving desired results.
Singh is continuously attacking the state government’s farming policy just after he was made the agriculture minister last month.
On September 11 while addressing his felicitation function at Chand in Kaimur, Singh had said that his department officials were thieves and he was genuinely their ‘Sardar’.
