Editorial
Subsidy riddled with corruption
Take legal action against the culprits
It is amazing how a well-intentioned monetary relief programme for marginal farmers initiated with the good of the economy in mind has had a tailspin through the machinations of vested quarters. With insatiable hunger for money the opportunists scavenge on anything smelling of monetary gains.
The Tk250crore subsidy distribution programme launched in April this year to benefit 67lakh poor farmers by way of recovering part of their cost of diesel used for irrigation has been plagued with misappropriation and different forms of corruption. Major portion of the undertaking has already been completed; but some districts are yet to be covered, even though less than a week is left of the current financial year.
The instances of corruption revealed through our investigative report make a sad commentary on how opaquely the exercise has been conducted. As for the specifics, some farmers who went to collect money were told that their allocation had already been withdrawn; a local influential forced an unsuspecting farmer to accompany him to the distribution point only to grab the money with a peanut given to the genuine claimant. Aside from the usual run of opportunists, UP members and even agriculture officials allegedly misappropriated a portion of the subsidies.
The criteria of entitlement in terms of the amount per acre as well as the acerage ceiling were flouted. The rule prohibiting subsidy to farmers possessing more than 2.5acres of land and the one requiring Tk545 to be paid per one acre of cultivable land were violated to line the pockets of the colluding elements. Even some people with no cultivable land were shown to have been subsidised. Such was the extent of the scandal that farmers of a certain area submitted a list and video interviews of the victims to the authorities. True, some UNOs with members of the joint forces visited the spots from which complaints rang out, but that doesn't detract from the fact that the overall scale of corruption was substantial.
While legal action should be taken against those accused of corruption, this phase of the subsidy operation must be regarded as an eye-opener to the incorrigible ways some people remain corrupt even under an emergency and when corruption is tainted in the public mind. The lessons should hold good for the next subsidy exercise.
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