The four-room office of the Directorate of Pulses Development is tucked away in a decrepit wing of a building that houses several Madhya Pradesh government offices. You wouldn’t think this is the nerve centre of a Government programme to monitor pulses nationwide and increase yield by strengthening links between the lab and the field. This programme, now called ISOPOM for Integrated Scheme of Oilseeds, Pulses, Oilpalm and Maize, is headed by director A K Tiwari who is preparing to wind up after eight years in the job to move to the Planning Commission.

And he’s not exactly working on a thank-you farewell speech.

In the charts Tiwari sends every quarter to Krishi Bhawan, one figure is an immediate giveaway of what’s wrong: almost each year, states are only able to utilize just a third of the funds sent to them for promotion of pulses. A sum of Rs 5000 crore has been spent on the Government’s “mission” on pulses which began in 1990 and was upgraded to ISOPOM in 2003.

Tiwari has waved countless red flags on what’s going wrong — from glaring gaps in supply of seeds and micronutrients to the lack of marketing infrastructure and post-harvest technologies — but he’s not sure if his bosses in New Delhi have even read them.

One reason he thinks he’s not been heard is hierarchy. His rank — he is not an IAS officer — is several rungs below that of the Commissioner in the state Agriculture department, the man responsible for actually implementing this programme. To monitor progress, Tiwari has to interact with Chief Secretaries and Joint Secretary-level officials. The unwritten code that non-IAS officers can’t monitor work of IAS officers has tied his hands down.

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