Corrupt officials taking advantage of gullible farmers, looting government money. Life threat posed to Suvarna News investigating team for exposing the scam.
When the State government introduced Krishi Raitha Bhagya for the welfare of the small and mid level farmers, it was expected to bring fortune to the beneficiaries. However, corrupt officials of the Horticulture and Agriculture Departments have made it an easy route to gain fortunes by cheating the gullible farmers. An investigation jointly carried out by the Kannada Prabha and Suvarna News teams has exposed the dark hands of the corrupt.
The Krishi Bhagya Yojane is a scheme that provides subsidies to small and mid level farmers for the construction of poly-house, shed-house, agricultural pond and for installing drip irrigation equipments. The SC and ST farmers get 90 percent and general category farmers get 50 percent of the cost. The corrupt officials pocket the sanctioned money and are cheating the farmers.
When the investigating team visited Mandya and Tumkur, it came to light that the Deputy Directors of Horticulture and Agriculture are directly involved in the scam.
The modus operandi is thus: The officials approach the farmers and take lease of their lands for five years. They give a meager sum of Rs 20,000 or 30,000 to the farmer and procure the land documents. Along with it, they also get the farmers’ signatures on blank papers. The application for Krishi Bhagya Yojane is applied in the name of the farmers and gets sanctioned. A namesake polyhouse or shed is constructed using very inferior, cheap material and the rest of the money is pocketed.
When the team visited the spot, it found the polyhouse, sheds, nets and pipes all broken down. If in case the farmer gets back his land, to make it cultivation worthy again is a mammoth task.
In Tiptur and Chikkanayakanahalli corrupt officials have applied and got sanctioned Krishi Bhagya in the names of their family members and relatives.
Another sly method is to keep the work order ready and leave only the name blank. As soon as they find a gullible farmer to gives them a bribe of Rs 3 lakh or Rs 6 lakh they fill up his name and issue the work order.In a rare case of farmer being smart, one Sandeep of Dudda Hobli, Mandya district, refused to pay the bribe. His application was cancelled. He directly wrote a complaint to the Horticulture Minister, who immediately looked into it and issued orders to sanction the work order to Sandeep.
Threat
When the investigating team visited Chikkanayakanahalli the Horticulture officer A S Pushpalatha threatened to get the team arrested and dire consequences if the scam is exposed.
Impact
As an impact of the Cover Story by Suvarna News on corruption in Krishi Bhagya Scheme, the issue was taken up during the Assembly discussion. The minister agreed that there was misappropriation and assured probe into it.
