Bhubaneswar: The recent report on state’s finances for 2017-18 submitted by the state Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) before the Odisha Legislative Assembly slammed the government for poor utilisation of funds meant for promotion of Potato Mission and cold storages.
The report claimed that due to non-utilisation of budgetary funds even to a level of zero per cent expenditure which led to failure of the whole boasted mission of the state government. The fund was meant to ensure ample potato production in the state and make it self-sufficient.
The CAG report, while commenting about the scheme said, “…the fact remained that inadequate utilisation of funds, failure to provide the incentives and support to the farmers led to non-implementation of the Potato Mission. Thus, the objective of achieving self sufficiency in production of potatoes by the year 2017-18 could not be achieved. The government accepted (March 2019) the audit observation,”
The CAG, in its report, highlighted that the department of horticulture showed very poor utilisation of funds. It said that in 2017-18 the state government made a budgetary provision of `20 crore for the fiscal but not even a single paise was used. On the other side, it made plans to build 10 cold storage units in the same year but only six could be completed.
The CAG said that when it asked the government to explain the reasons the officials cited lack of interest from private players to operate cold storages and lack of quality seeds for bulk production. In its report, the CAG said,
“The Director of Horticulture stated (October 2018) that due to non-receipt of proposals for establishment of cold storages by private parties, non-availability of quality potato seed, high seed cost, late planting of potatoes etc, the target could not be achieved,”
The auditor said that to make Odisha self-sufficient in potatoes by the year 2017-18, the state government had launched State Potato Mission during 2015-16 for production, storage and distribution of potatoes in the state. The state government made plans to disburse incentives to the farmers for undertaking large scale cultivation of potatoes in clusters, provide incentives for production of seed potatoes in the farmer’s field and to support setting up of adequate number of cold storages in the state.