The Big Story: Costly intervention

In 2015, the Bharatiya Janata Party government drew up a blueprint to reform the system that delivers Rs 70,000 crore worth of fertiliser subsidies to farmers. The task was commendable. India spends 1% of its Gross Domestic Product on these subsidies but 35% of this money actually gets to farmers. But the plan was flawed. Its design was predicated on using three databases – land ownership records, soil health cards and Aadhaar, the biometrics-based 12 digit identity number. If any of these three failed, the entire reform plan stood a good chance of collapsing.

In 2016, the reform scheme was rolled out in three districts. As Scroll.in’s Mridula Chari and Kumar Sambhav Srivastav reported in a four-part series earlier this month, the scheme floundered for a variety of reasons, some as complex as flaws in the databases, others as basic as a lack of internet connectivity. Instead of going back to the drawing board, the government proceeded to introduce a morphed version of the plan in another 16 districts, relying only on Aadhaar. Reports on the results from these were never made public.

Advertisement

Scroll.in reporters found that instead of delivering benefits to farmers in the 19 pilot districts, the scheme was only adding to their problems. To ensure that sales didn’t stop and that farming operations could continue, fertiliser retailers began to bypass even the sole remaining component of the original plan, Aadhaar. Even though Scroll.in reporters found that several officials and experts had expressed concerns about the scheme, a recent news report suggests the government aims to launch the scheme in seven states.

Like several other schemes of this government that are linked to an unwavering belief in Aadhaar but disconnected from the country’s economic and social realities, a pan-India roll-out of fertiliser reforms could cause farmers across the country to be denied their rightful benefits.

There is a case to be made for ambitious government plans that push the system to deliver subsidies more efficiently. But administrators must realise that a country’s ability to undertake reforms, particularly those premised on technology adoption, are linked to its economic and developmental capacity. The rights of citizens cannot be forgotten in the quest to achieve fiscal and bureaucratic efficiencies. Most important, the cart cannot be put before the horse. Before rolling out grand plans, the basic building blocks must be put in place.

Advertisement

The Big Scroll

  • Read the entire fertiliser subsidy reform series here.

Subscribe to “The Daily Fix” by either downloading Scroll’s Android app or opting for it to be delivered to your mailbox. For the rest of the day’s headlines do click here.

If you have any concerns about our coverage of particular issues, please write to the Readers’ Editor at readerseditor@scroll.in

Punditry

  1. People were once hopeful that Myanmar would be offer the rare example of a successful quick transition to democracy. Max Fisher in the New York Times says the country is now a study in how that change can fall apart.
  2. Vidhi Doshi in the Washington Post writes on how Narendra Modi’s big economic changes have hit India’s small businesses.
  3. James Wilson takes apart the government’s claims of bringing down the currency in circulation, and indeed whether that is a desirable achievement at all.
  4. “Pakistan was essentially created to protect the religious and economic rights of Muslims who were a minority before India’s partition in 1947. But since the country’s inception, we have created new minorities and keep finding new ways to torment them,” writes Mohammad Hanif in the New York Times.

Don’t miss

Vishwas R Gaitonde tells us the story of the harmonium, a European instrument that is now inseparable from Indian music.

“The portability of the harmonium (relative to the organ, the harpsichord and the piano), and its heat resistance meant that the British could export the instrument to their colonies for their homes and their churches there. Thus, several European harmoniums made their way to India where they became the cynosure of the eyes of Indian musicians.

One such musician was Dwarkanath Ghose, whose company Dwarkin & Sons, was a leading manufacturer of musical instruments in Kolkata (then Calcutta). In 1875, he brought out his version of the Indian hand-harmonium, an instrument more than halved in size from the European harmonium because it was pumped by hand-operated bellows located at the back of the instrument instead of foot-operated bellows beneath the keyboard.

This new incarnation of the harmonium was more durable, far less expensive to build, and easier to maintain and repair. Ghose simplified the internal mechanism of the instrument, and added drone stops that would render it suitable for Indian classical music.

A scale-changing mechanism was added later. Moreover, Indian musicians traditionally sat on the floor when they gave concerts, and the modified harmonium could be played while placed on the ground.

But the fundamental difference that made such adaptations possible at all was this: Western music is based on harmony, Indian music on melody. Therefore it was quite feasible to pump the bellows with one hand and play the melody with the other. One did not need both hands on the keyboard. India started manufacturing its own harmoniums, and by 1915, had become the world’s leading producer of the instruments.”