While the Centre has not officially spelt out the reasons for the drop in the number of beneficiaries, News18 has learnt it could be due to the land and beneficiary records of farmers not being updated in central databases, a mandatory condition
With the Centre insisting on proper records to ensure there are no leakages or ineligible beneficiaries, the number of farmers who got the latest installment of Rs 2,000 on February 27 under the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi has dropped to about 8.54 crore.
This is lower than 8.99 crore farmers who got the installment on October 17 last year for the August-November period, and the all-time high of 11.27 crore farmers who got the installment on May 31 last year for the April-July period of 2022-23.
As per the dashboard of the PM-Kisan portal, 8,53,80,362 farmers got the latest installment on February 27 for the December-March period in 2022-23, down almost 25% from the number of beneficiaries who got the April-July period installment last year.
According to the government’s statement, on May 31 last year, over Rs 21,000 crore was transferred to farmers as part of the 11th PM-Kisan installment. The government statement on February 27 this year said Rs 16,800 crore was transferred to farmers as part of the 13th PM-Kisan installment. The Centre pays three installments of Rs 2,000 each to farmers across the country in each financial year under the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme.
THE REASONS
While the Centre has not officially spelt out the reasons for the drop in the number of beneficiaries while paying out the last two installments, News18 has learnt that this could be due to the land and beneficiary records of farmers not being updated in central databases, a requirement made mandatory by the Centre for the sake of transparency and reducing frauds. All states have been repeatedly sensitized about this, it is learnt.
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News18 has learnt that the Centre has specified that only those farmers, whose records fulfill four specific conditions, will get the installments of PM-Kisan Nidhi.
- The first is that the land record of the farmer must be marked, to determine that the farmer actually owns the said land.
- The second is that the farmer’s e-KYC must stand completed on the PM-Kisan Portal.
- The third condition is that the farmer’s bank account must be seeded with Aadhaar.
- The fourth is that it be linked to the National Payments Corporation of India.
The state governments’ revenue and administration officials, banks and the farmers need to work together to ensure the records are duly updated.
News18 had earlier reported that the Uttar Pradesh government had ordered a special campaign in every village from January 16 to January 30 to ensure all eligible farmers get the PM-Kisan installments.
UP has the biggest chunk of farmers and as many as 2.41 crore farmers got the 11th installment on May 31 last year. But the number dropped drastically to just 1.79 crore farmers last October. It is not yet known how many farmers in UP got the latest installment.
