The Department of Agriculture in the two districts is all set to roll out the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) fertiliser subsidy scheme to farmers on September 1, making sale of subsidised fertilisers only through Point of Sale (PoS) machines to farmers who have Aadhaar cards.
Aimed at saving subsidy outgo and plug the pilferages of the subsidy amount, the government has introduced the DBT system and agriculture departments in the two districts have distributed PoS to private fertiliser dealers and Primary Agriculture Cooperative Credit Societies (PACCS) to implement the scheme.
Under the scheme, the PoS machines would capture details of the farmers, retailers and the transactions whenever the farmers bought the fertilisers at subsided rate. This would help the government to release the subsidy to the fertiliser companies for the exact quantity of fertiliser sold to the farmers, thus preventing any kind of malpractice.
The department in Ramanathapuram has completed distribution of 161 PoS – 64 to private dealers and 97 to PACCS on Tuesday. “We have completed 80% deployment of PoS to all potential private dealers and PACCS,” S. Kanniah, Assistant Director (AD), Agriculture (quality control), said.
The department had placed intent for 73 more PoS to be distributed in the second phase, he said.
In Sivaganga, the department has received 166 PoS, made available by the Madras Fertilisers Limited and the department has so far distributed 65 machines to the private dealers, K.R. Sathappan, AD, Agriculture (quality control), said.
He said 101 PACCS would be given the PoS on August 28 and 29. The department had sought 84 more machines to be distributed in the second phase, he added.
Subsidy was available for Urea, Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP), Super Phosphate, Muriate of Potash (MOP) Ammonium sulphate and all complex fertilisers and the two districts have enough stock of the fertilisers to meet the demand when agriculture activities would begin ahead of the north-east monsoon in October, the officials said.
