Kiran Kumar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Cropped.
Madhya Pradesh has stocked more fertiliser for the rabi season than it did last year, yet farmers in several districts are spending days to get a few bags, because the e-token system meant to end the queues keeps failing them.
The agriculture department says it holds 5.50 lakh tonnes of urea against 3.70 lakh tonnes last year, besides 1.60 lakh tonnes of DAP, 3.60 lakh tonnes of NPK and 3.75 lakh tonnes of SSP, Dainik Bhaskar reported.
The trouble is access. Farmers book fertiliser on the e-Vikas portal. When its server is down, the portal shows zero stock. The one time password is valid for ten minutes and often arrives late where the network is weak; missing it means a 24 hour wait. A token lapses after 72 hours, and kiosk operators in Rajgarh charge ₹50 for each new one. In Berasia, Raju Meena was told his society had no stock and drove 60 km to Sehore, spending about ₹100 more a bag.
The token has a history. It was suspended on July 29 after farmer protests. In the weeks that followed, purchases in 15 districts rose to as much as nine times last year's levels. Collectors found about 1.5 lakh farmers had bought nearly double their need on the Aadhaar cards of relatives and labourers and stored it at home. Chhatarpur alone lifted 2,500 tonnes in 12 days, against 255 tonnes a year earlier.
The token came back to stop that. Small and marginal farmers make up about three quarters of the state's roughly one crore landholders, and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh says small and medium farmers are the worst hit. Joint director G S Chauhan said faults were being fixed immediately. In Harda, an 843 tonne rake of DAP has just reached societies.
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