India / ₹12,000 crore disbursed to 6 crore farmers under PM-Kisan scheme

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday facilitated disbursal of Rs 12,000 crore to 6 crore farmers in one go under the government’s flagship PM-Kisan scheme, taking the total amount transferred to about Rs 42,000 crore so far this fiscal.

The Centre may be able to save about 40% of the budgeted Rs 75,000 crore as the total pay out under the scheme is seen at about Rs 45,000 crore in 2019-20. Without taking any name, Modi slammed West Bengal for not implementing the scheme in the state. He said that such petty politics has done great damage to the farming community.

“I expect that in the new year, those states which are not associated with the Kisan Samman Yojana will at least become a part of it,” the prime minister said at a function in Tumakuru, Karnataka.

West Bengal, with an estimated over 70 lakh farmers, is the only state which is out of the ambit of PM-Kisan as it has refused to share and authenticate farmers’ data. Claiming his government has ensured that the entire money reached the poor beneficiaries, Modi hit out at previous governments for their failure to check the misuse and diversion of Central funds. “There was a time when a rupee was rolled out (by the Centre) for the poor person, and only 15 paise would reach him. The middlemen would pocket the remaining 85 paise… Today, whatever money is dispatched from Delhi, the entire amount directly reaches the bank account of the beneficiary,” he said.

This is the last tranche of Rs 2,000 installment this fiscal and the government has made Aadhaar linked bank accounts mandatory from December 1. The direct benefit transfer scheme was announced by the then finance minister Piyush Goyal during his Interim Budget speech in February last year and about Rs 6,000 crore was disbursed in FY19 as the scheme was made effective retrospectively from December 2018. Initially, the target was to cover 12 crore small and marginal farmers (owning up to 2 hectares), with each getting Rs 6,000/year in three equal installments. But after returning to power in May, the NDA government expanded the scheme to cover all the farmers, benefitting additional two crore growers.

Out of 14 crore farmers estimated to get the PM-Kisan benefits, the Centre has collected data of as many as 9.2 crore farmers as of December 29. Uttar Pradesh is the top performing state which has collected data of nearly 2 crore (out of 2.4 crore) farmers, so far. The prime minister also gave away the Krishi Karman Awards and distributed fishing equipment to select farmers on the occasion.