He was addressing a roundtable discussion titled "Budget for the Marginalised: 2006-07, Farmers' Expectations", held in the VIP lounge of the National Press Club yesterday.

The discussion was organised by Shamunnaya, a research organisation, Manusher Jonno, an NGO, and the daily Samakal.

Dr Atiur Rahman, chairman of Shamunnaya, presented a keynote paper based on a field level survey carried out by the organisation in seven districts. The paper depicted a range of irregularities in disbursement of agricultural subsidies and loans.

The survey found that a deputy commissioner of a district collected fertiliser from wholesalers by sending request notes and sent the consignments to his relatives living outside the district during the acute fertiliser crisis in February-March.

A number of fertiliser wholesalers and retailers in an upazila on condition of anonymity told Shamunnaya that the DC sent notes to them mentioning how much fertiliser was to be sent to exactly which addresses amid countrywide acute fertiliser crisis. The DC also paid for the consignments through bank drafts, they said adding that the DC's practices created a severe fertiliser crisis in the district.

Most of the 17 farmers living in a village in another district told Shamunnaya that they had to go to the district headquarters and had to wait in queues for entire days to get a bag of fertiliser for Tk 295 from wholesalers. They also said if they had worked as labourers for the same period of time they could have earned Tk 50 to Tk 60. So they opted for buying fertiliser from retailers in the local market for Tk 320 to Tk 330 each bag.

Although the government is providing subsidy for non-urea fertilisers, an agriculture officer of an upazila in another district told Shamunnaya that he was not even aware that the government is giving subsidy for fertiliser. He also said prices of all sorts of fertilisers except urea were very high.

A rickshaw-puller, living in a district headquarters said although he is not a farmer and does not have any land, he managed to get an agricultural loan of Tk 3,000 in exchange of a bribe of Tk 500.

Farmers of a village said they had to pay Tk 200 as bribe on an average for every thousand taka in agricultural loan.

Prof Wahiduddin, chief guest at the event, said, "A large part of the subsidy is pocketed by middlemen, a class that is usually created under political patronisation."

He also said, the real problem of our country is that the political leaders are less of politicians and more of businessmen.

Wholesalers must be appointed openly as open market economy demands, and should not be appointed on political considerations. Besides, uninterrupted supply must be ensured, he said.

An increase in subsidies will not help, what is needed now is development of an efficient system for disbursing the subsidies to the farmers, he said.

There is no corruption in micro-credit disbursement although lakhs of taka are disbursed by the NGOs every day, but corruption is there in agricultural loan disbursement, he lamented. The reason is simple -- while micro-credit is disbursed openly, agriculture loan is disbursed discreetly. To get rid of malpractices, community involvement in loan distribution system will have to be increased, he suggested.

Dr Atiur urged the government to introduce "farmers' cards" on which a farmer's name, address, the size of his cultivable land, crops he produces, the amount of seeds and fertilisers he requires every season, and how much irrigation is required will be mentioned. A committee can be formed in every union taking consent of that union's farmers and that committee will distribute those farmers' cards in a public meeting.

Abdul Mannan MP suggested appointing one wholesaler for every union to ensure that the subsidies reach the farmers.

Abdur Razzak MP said defence allocation over the last ten years has increased from Tk 2,000 crore to Tk 4,000 crore, but allocation for agriculture has increased very little compared to that.

GM Kader MP urged the government to provide seeds and fertilisers through government channels instead of private channels.

Among others Maj Gen (retd) Amzad Khan Chowdhury, chief executive officer of Pran Group, Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, programme coordinator of Ganoshashthaya Kendra Nagar Hospital, Hossain Zillur Rahman, executive chairman of PPRC, and Shaikh Siraj, director of Channel i spoke as special guests while AKM Muksudul Alam of Shamunnaya, Shaheen Anam, team leader of Manusher Jonno, and Abed Khan, editor of the daily Samakal, delivered welcome speeches.