But before I get into what this scheme is and the intricacies of agriculture, I have a request.

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This story begins in February 2016.

PM Modi said in a rally that the govt would help double farmers' incomes by 2022.

But a year later, when farmers demanded better payments as promised, things took an extremely dark turn -- and resulted in the killing of agitating farmers.

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Madhya Pradesh farmers were demanding better prices after a particularly bad agrarian year. Modi govt's policy of first nudging them to grow more pulses and oilseeds and then importing those very crops in record quantities led to an oversupply. Prices crashed and farmers suffered

When farmers agitated, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led state government labelled them anti-national and then resorted to violence. MP cops shot and killed six farmers and wounded six more.

The killings sent shook the country.

MP polls were just a year away. The gov't had to act.

It then began an experiment.

Under this new scheme, whenever a farmer was forced to sell their produce at prices below the government-declared minimum support price (MSP) the govt would compensate for their losses.

Read The Economic Times article here.

So if MSP for a crop is Rs 100 and the farmer got only Rs 60 from the trader at the mandi. The govt would pay the farmer Rs 40 to bridge the deficit.

BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh tried out this tool, known as a Price Deficiency Payment System (PDPS), to pacify agrarian anger.

The scheme failed spectacularly.

Traders, knowing for a fact that the govt would pay farmers, colluded to artificially depress prices. So market prices slipped even lower than normal - meaning taxpayer money would now bridge this gap.

While the middleman made a higher profit.

In simple terms, the scheme led to scams.

Further, as a former Union Agri Secretary pointed out, few farmers signed up for the scheme. Reason? It had a very elaborate registration process. Farmers had to sign up on an online portal and submit papers, including of land ownership.

The Madhya Pradesh gov't withdrew this scheme in six months -- with a few months left to go for the 2018 state polls.

But despite criticism from experts and ground reports of widespread corruption, the Modi gov't took fancy to this model.

Read the FirstPost article here.

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In March 2018, began discussions with states and UTs for launching a new farmers scheme for doubling farmers income. The scheme would have multiple components -- each designed to ensure farmers get MSP for their crops.

Modi govt presented three options: a decentralised direct procurement model where states would notify MSP, the Madhya Pradesh PDPS model and a third component where private firms would buy from farmers at MSP.

Majority of states supported the first model. Almost the same number rejected PDPS.

BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh explicitly said it would not want PDPS since the scheme led to "cartelisation".

A rare instance where one BJP-ruled state officially admitted corruption by another.

Overturning the objections of most states the Modi govt chose PDPS as one of the components for the proposed scheme. It dropped the most popular model -- decentralised procurement -- which most states batted for. All because the corrupt model would cost it less!

The proposed scheme, called Pradhan Mantri Annadatta Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyaan or PM Aasha, had taken its final shape.

It would subsume a decades-old scheme under which the union govt has been procuring from farmers, offer states the option of choosing PDPS for oilseeds and have a pilot project meant to test the viability of private players buying from farmers at MSP.

Essentially, PM Aasha brought only one new policy tool nationwide: the PDPS scheme that states had warned about.

But before the launch of the scheme, there was a round of inter-ministerial discussions to go. Different ministries chip in with their views as part of this process.

Multiple ministries, including the PMO, asked the Agriculture Ministry to evaluate the Madhya Pradesh scheme. The NITI Aayog meanwhile pointed out on file that the scheme was prone to scams and needs robust infra to keep corruption in check.

The response? Let states do that.

The Finance Ministry pointed out that the only way PDPS can work is to first collect farmers' land data. This, by definition, excluded crores of tenant farmers or those who work on leased land.

The response? PM Aasha is not meant to address tenancy issues.

But that wasn't all. Not all comments were about nuts and bolts of policy.

At least one of them seemed to question the very idea of doubling farmers' incomes to begin with.

The Consumer Affairs Ministry was scared that if poor farmers are made rich it would lead to price rise!

Its argument was based on the idea that if the poor are made rich, they would buy more goods and services. This increase in expenditure would mean an overall rise in demand for those goods and services. As demand rises, so will prices.

The logic suffered from a fundamental flaw.

It was creating an "us vs them" scenario between farmers and the "rest of us". Between producers and consumers.

Whereas, as experts have pointed out, farmers constitute a very large portion of consumers in India.

Read the article in The New Indian Express here.

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Govt's response was telling: Issues of inflation will "still remain", it said. But PM Aasha would not be able to tackle them since it is only built to ensure farmers get MSP.

With these comments, the hackjob of internal consultation was over.

By August 2018, govt-commissioned evaluation of the Madhya Pradesh scheme was submitted to it. The study, by IEG, confirmed what many had said: PDPS was prone to corruption. The govt should consider scaling it up only after making significant changes to the scheme design.

But the gov't ignored this advice too.

In fact, the final design of the scheme made it clear that govt did not want it to work at all. According to the scheme, only a quarter of a farmer's produce will be compensated by the union government.

But that wasn't the worst part.

If a state wants to ensure compensation is more widely available, it would have to foot the ENTIRE bill.

This in a scheme which most states had rejected.

Plus, the guidelines mandated that states allow privatisation of agricultural trade to be eligible for the scheme and give up some of its powers over mandis to the centre. Not only is this against what states wanted, it was also what farmers groups had been protesting against.

Eventually, when no state agreed to these changes, the Modi govt sought to impose the three farm laws across India. This may sound like conjecture but isn't. This is an admission made by a top govt official in a publicly-available paper. Read about it here.

PM Aasha was launched seven months before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. But apart from months around 2019 and 2024 elections, the scheme has seen little to no funding. When asked about this by a parliamentary committee, the centre did what it has done best.

You can read part 1 of the investigation, about how the scheme saw little to no funding, by Navya Asopa and me here.

And part 2, exposing the corrupt origins of the scheme here.

Once again I request you to donate to The Reporters' Collective. My colleagues and I can keep doing this work only thanks to support from our generous readers. To donate to us, visit here.

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