A Poor Fix

The new fertiliser subsidy regime may fail to solve most problems of the earlier system.

- Joe C. Mathew

For 24-year-old Simranjeet Singh, it is a lean day at work. The national agricultural market in Karnal, Haryana, where he manages a family-run fertiliser outlet, is blazingly hot. Ongoing wheat procurement is the only visible activity in the market. Singh expects fertiliser sales to gain momentum once wheat harvesting is over and monsoon (kharif) sowing begins.

However, any buyer who steps into his shop cannot help but notice the new process that has now become integral to his business. The moment someone asks him for any of the 20-odd fertiliser varieties sold at subsidised prices, he takes out a fingerprint-reading point-ofsale, or POS, machine, inserts a SIM card, activates it by keying in his 12-digit unique identity number (Aadhaar), and authenticates it by using his fingerprint. This tiny machine has records of the shop’s current stock, and after generating a sales receipt, automatically updates the stock position. It shares all this information with a central server, ensuring that the trail of each and every transaction can be tracked by the government, which provides the subsidy, as well as fertiliser companies. The customer, too, has to share his Aadhaar number and follow the same authentication exercise. The idea is to help the government know exactly how much quantity was sold, by whom, from where, and when, and make the fertiliser distribution system transparent to curb leakages and corruption.