Seedy deal: Machines purchased for seed industry project sprout no gains

Agriculture dept purchased the eight machines worth Rs7.3 million in 2012.

PESHAWAR:

Heavy machinery worth millions of rupees - purchased for the agriculture department’s seed industry project under the Agriculture Development Fund (ADF) in 2012 - has been found to be of poor quality, with its purchase overshadowed by mismanagement.

Districts officials of the project have expressed dissatisfaction over the machines’ functioning and demanded a probe into the purchasing deal.

A source within the Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperative Department told The Express Tribune that as the machines did not meet the required specifications, they were hampering operations of the department in various districts across the province. The total budget of the project was Rs40 million, while the eight machines cost an estimated Rs7.3 million.

The short tender notice for the machines was floated on July 13, 2011 in a national English daily. The tender included seed processing plants, seed treatment equipment and power generators. The tender for seed cleaning machine/processing plant or seed grader were specified to clean 1.5 to 2 metric tonnes of seed per hour.

A six-member purchasing committee was constituted on September 30, 2011. According to a department notification, the body was delegated powers under the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Procurement of Goods, Works and Services Rules 2003, for purchasing the equipment under the seed industry project’s ADF during 2011-12.

A source within the department said the committee was kept in the dark during the purchasing process, which he claimed was against rules and regulations.

A committee member, Abdul Rehman, who served as assistant director (seed) in the department said, “I was not consulted despite the fact that the committee was formed for supervising the procurement process. This was completely against our terms of responsibilities,” he added.

The source said the seed grader machine wanted in the initial sketch was not purchased and some eight other machines, not meeting the required specifications, were purchased due to which most of them are lying non-functional. The copy of the original sketch, available with The Express Tribune, also shows that the eight machines were not purchased according to the requirements.

A seed storekeeper in DI Khan, Jamil Khan, said the seed cleaning machine cannot be brought into use as it lacks necessary equipment to operate fully. He said the new machines only clean three bags of seeds in one hour and they need one which can clean 20 to 25 bags in the same period.

“We should have been given well-equipped machines as the need for seed cleaning of various categories is the highest here compared to the rest of the province,” he said. Khan explained that the biggest seed farms were located in DI Khan and they supply seeds of various crops to the entire province.

Sultanzeb, another seed storekeeper in Takht Bhai, Mardan said senior officials of the department expressed dissatisfaction over the machines and even wrote to higher authorities but to no avail. “This is a small machine and barely cleans 10 to 12 maunds of seeds in an hour,” he said, adding they were thus using old machines which easily clean 500 to 600 maunds of wheat daily.

Muhammad Ihtisham of Noorani Industries, Faisalabad, said they are the original manufacturing company and the machines they provided were according to the order placed by the department. “The major problem is that the department has no trained staff to operate the machine,” he said, adding that prolonged power outages are also one of the reasons why the machine cannot be operated.

“Our engineers visited the places where the machines were installed and we also received clearance certificates from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government at the time,” he added.

When contacted, former agriculture secretary Afsar Khan said the entire process was conducted according to rules and regulations. He claimed the multipurpose machines were according to specifications and no one reported any fault during his tenure.

“If anyone has any doubts I have no problem if a probe is conducted, even by the National Accountability Bureau,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2014.