The Farm Mechanization Scheme of 2009 has benefited the ACI Motors and high ups of the project instead of the farmers, competent sources said.
The government launched the project in 2009 to increase crop production, save time and ensure more profit.
Under this scheme, agricultural inputs are provided to farmers at subsidized cost. But in most cases the farmers did not get the parts.Farmers have been deprived, and project officials have benefited. The influential people got these parts at subsidized prices through political influence, bribery transactions.
ACI Motors was given absolute control over the supply of machinery, especially with the help of a few influential people including the Project Director (PD) and Agriculture Minister AbdurRazzakof the ousted Awami League government.
In 2009 there were four companies including ACI in the list of enlisted companies. After that no more companies were allowed to be enlisted till 2020. In order to prevent the other three companies from getting work, various unnecessary criteria were given through the PD.For this, the big bosses of the Department of Agricultural Extension have taken huge bribes from ACI.
The ACI Motors had almost absolute dominance in the Directorate during the Hasina government and since there was no other competitor, everything from pricing was under the control of ACI Motors.As a result, there were complaints of not getting the devices even with money. There were also reports of charging two to three times the price of various devices. The matter came out in the investigation of the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Department (IMED) of the project.
According to the investigation report done in June last year, the instructions of the DPP (Development Project Proposal) were not followed; ignoring the advice of the technical committee and spending money on expensive equipment and repair of new furniture;buying agricultural machinery at high prices without checking the market price; procuring, buying and supplying low power (horse power) agricultural machinery to farmersand irregular payment of bills without penalty to the supplier despite supplying substandard equipment. There were irregularities and corruption such as collecting excess money from farmers and spending money beyond the annual limit of the scheme.
Earlier in July 2010 a two-year project ‘Crop Production through Farm Mechanization’ was taken up. The two-year project was extended until 2019. In all, the project cost stands at Tk496 croreand 38 lakh.The PD was Sheikh Md. NazimUddin and Deputy Project Director (DPD) were Md. Shafiqul Islam Sheikh.
Many devices delivered before 2019 are now unaccounted for.Some equipment aredamaged and unusable. Later, about Tk70 crores were allocated for the purchase of 1,800 more machines, but none of them were found.
After inquiry, it was known that 19 combine harvesters were allocated at Kishoreganj headquarters. But after months of searching, none of them were found. Agriculture officials also have no information about it.
Akhtarul Islam, Chairman of PirganjUpazilaParishad of Thakurgaon, received the power tiller of farmers’ subsidy.Amir Sohail, son of former municipal mayor KafirulAlam, a rice mill trader, has been given the opportunity to buy a power tiller even though he is not a farmer. UP member TabirUddin of Senua village of the same upazila sold the tiller to a person. However, there is no opportunity to transfer this device within three years.
About 70 thousand devices of 72 thousand 675 devices of subsidy PD Sheikh Md. NazimUddin, Benazir Alam, DPD Shafiqul Sheikh and other influential leaders of the Awami League were managed and supplied.The total subsidy allocation for these devices was Tk 338 crore. The farmers did not get even 10 percent of the equipment in subsidized prices.
In many places the farmer has taken pictured with the machine,but the machines were taken it back and given to someone else.It is alleged that hundreds of crores of taka of this project entered the pockets of PD and DPD as well as the then agriculture minister and influential leaders of Awami League through ACI Motors.
Although Tk8 crore 17 lakh 44 thousand have been allocated for 375 demonstration machines, since the purchase of the parts, sheds have been constructed in the office of the Deputy Director, Directorate of Agricultural Extension and have been left for years.No demonstrations were made with those instruments, which now have no momentum other than being sold as scrap.
For other exhibitions, Tk14 croresfor agricultural machinery repair and Tl5 croresfor transportation have been shown, but it is in the books. ACI Motors and related officials reconciled personal expenses through various bill-vouchers.
The dishonest syndicate was formed through Shafiqul Islam Sheikh. DPD Shafiqul was Sub-Project Director of Crop Production Project through Farm Mechanization from 2010 to 2019.Since 2020, he has been carrying out the same responsibility of agricultural mechanization project through integrated management. It is alleged that Shafiqul Islam looted from two similar projects for a long time by managing the influential people of Hasina government.
This official allowed ACI Motors to continue monopoly business from 2010 to 2020. On his orders, no new company was allowed to be enlisted in the project.ACI used to distribute the bulk of the equipment allocated then.
Apart from this, many officials and people from various companies were cornered in the farm under the influence of DPD Shafiqul Islam and ACIE Motors due to the collusion with the higher officials of the ministry.ACI Motors and ACI Agribusiness Company used to give unethical benefits to various officials and employees in the farms through their influence in order to monopolize the agricultural sector.
ACI Motors Executive Director SubrataRanjan Das was not available for comments.
