Govt to track fertiliser movement via mobiles to plug leakages

The government will roll out a mobile-based system to track fertiliser movement and shift gradually to direct transfer of subsidies to farmers to plug leakages, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said today.

Noting that the government's endeavour would be to bring down central subsidies to 1.75% of GDP in next three years, Mukherjee said the focus would now be on targetting subsidies better and in leakage-proof way.

"A mobile-based Fertiliser Management System (mFMS) has been designed to provide end-to-end information on the movement of fertilisers and subsidies, from the manufacturer to the retail level. This will be rolled out nation-wide during 2012," Mukherjee said in his Budget 2012-13 proposals.

The mFMS has been designed based on the recommendations of the task force headed by Nandan Nilekani on IT strategy for direct transfer of subsidies, he said.

Mukherjee announced that "direct transfer of subsidy to the retailer, and eventually to the farmer will be implemented in subsequent phases."

This step will benefit 12 crore farmer families, while reducing expenditure on subsidies by curtailing misuse of fertilisers, he noted.