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Odisha

Report of 2011 - Performance Audit on Agriculture Department of Government of Odisha

Date on which Report Tabled:
Thu 29 Mar, 2012
Date of sending the report to Government:
Government Type:
State
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Sector -

Overview

The over-arching objective of Agriculture Department was to ensure comprehensive agricultural growth in the State in terms of both production and productivity as also farmers welfare. We conducted audit of Agriculture Wing of Agriculture Department covering the period 2006-11 during April to July 2011 with the broad objective of assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of the Chief Controlling Officer (CCO) in operationalising the State Agriculture Policy 2008 (SAP) for achieving the afore-stated broad objective of the Department. We also looked at the robustness and efficacy of the strategies adopted to achieve these policy objectives.

We are of the opinion that the CCO did not attach adequate importance to planning as an instrument of development and growth of agriculture in the State. Audit noticed that despite announcement of State Agriculture Policy (SAP) in 2008, the Department was moving without direction and focus in the absence of any long term planning. While perspective plan was not prepared despite its requirement under the State Policy and instructions of the Chief Minister, the Annual Agriculture Plans were prepared centrally at the Directorate level without consulting District Agriculture Plans prepared by the Planning and Co-ordination Department which were then routinely approved by the CCO. Bottom-up approach in planning taking into account local needs, knowledge and problems to bridge the existing gap in availability of resources and capacity building etc., was largely missing.

Though the State had irrigation potential for 30.36 lakh hectares, the fact that only 20.85 lakh hectares (69 per cent) were under crop cultivation was an area of concern. Jalanidhi scheme for captive irrigation virtually failed in Jagatsinghpur district due to irregular execution of shallow tube wells in saline affected Gram Panchayats (GPs). Though the seed replacement rate (SRR) of the major crop i.e., rice, gradually increased, the productivity decreased and was far below the national average. Similarly, agricultural productivity of other major crops like pulses and oil seeds remained much below the national average.

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