Bihar agriculture minister Sudhakar Singh has asked people to thrash errant officials of his department with shoes because they were “thieves” in what is being seen as the latest salvo from within the coalition government in the state.

The minister made public his phone number and asked the people to inform him if any official harasses them.

Singh issued the instruction while disclosing that the agriculture road maps in the state had been a failure and grain production had declined drastically, leading to food insecurity among the people.

“The officials of my department are thieves. Thrash them with shoes whenever you see them doing anything wrong. I will take care of the consequences,” he said.

Singh, an RJD MLA from Ramgarh, was addressing a meeting of farmers in his native Kaimur district on Sunday, venting ire on the officials and the work culture of his department. He asked the people to step forward and complain about such employees.

“They are taking bribes of Rs 35,000 and Rs 50,000. I am saying this myself. But nobody will get caught if you do not complain about such people. If you do not submit it in writing, all of them will go scot-free,” Singh added.

Singh, now being considered a minister who has rebelled, termed chief minister Nitish Kumar’s brainchild agriculture road map as “useless” with “no evidence” that it benefited the farmers or led to an increase in farm productivity.

“The foodgrain production in the state in 2011-12 was 1.77 crore tonnes. The figure before me showed that the foodgrain production in 2021-22 was 1.76 crore tonnes. The production has declined by 1 lakh tonnes,” the minister said.

“This is a very worrying thing because the population of the state must have increased during this period. So what arrangements have we made to provide food to this new population? The road maps are made with relation to our present needs,” he added.

At present, the third five-year agriculture road map is being implemented in Bihar, and plans are being made to formulate the fourth one. However, Singh called for a probe into their outcomes.

“We want to get the activities and results of the second and the third agriculture road maps audited by an independent agency before moving on to prepare the fourth road map. Neither the production nor the income of farmers has increased,” Singh told The Telegraph.

The agriculture minister added that he would focus on increasing the per hectare productivity and income as well as ensuring that all facilities, including seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, storage and market, are provided to the farmers.

Just a month into the job, Singh has ruffled a lot of feathers with his statements. He had previously asserted at a public meeting that the agriculture department was full of thieves and he, by default, was the sardar (chief) of thieves and raised questions about the implementation of the scheme to provide water to every farm. This had led to a verbal showdown with Nitish at a cabinet meeting.

“Agriculture is the backbone of our country and state. A vast percentage of people depend on it. I am piqued at the miserable situation of my department. Whatever I am saying is correct and I am working to improve the situation,” Singh told this newspaper.

Nitish’s Janata Dal United (JDU) took umbrage at Singh’s comments.

“The agriculture road map’s success could be gauged from the fact that Bihar won national awards during the UPA and NDA regimes at the Centre. They did not come because of anybody’s recommendation or benevolence. We got best dairy state award in 2018 because of our work. There is a long list of achievements of the state in agriculture. We don’t know about what someone else is commenting,” JDU MLC and spokesperson Neeraj Kumar told reporters.