After nearly two crore farmers across the country missed out on their last PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi installment of Rs 2,000 leading to a low payout under the scheme, which had started four years ago, state governments are now working overtime to ensure farmer records are updated in central databases ahead of the next installment due this February.
The Centre had paid Rs 22,552 crore to 10.45 crore farmers as the 11th installment of PM Kisan Nidhi on May 31 last year, the highest payout till date. But this dropped in a big way to just Rs 17,443 crore to 8.42 crore farmers as the 12th installment on October 17 last year.
A major reason for this was 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.
Multiple states are now trying to address the issue.
THE 4 CONDITIONS
News18 has accessed an order issued by the Uttar Pradesh government on January 13, which states that the Centre has specified that only those farmers will get the upcoming 13th installment of PM-Kisan Nidhi whose records will fulfill four conditions. The first is that the land record of the farmer must be marked, to determine that the farmer actually owns land. The second is that the farmer’s e-KYC is completed on the PM-Kisan Portal. The third condition is that the farmer’s bank account must be seeded with Aadhaar and the fourth is that this must be also linked to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
These seem to be the reasons why two crore farmers in the country missed out on getting the 12th installment of PM-Kisan Nidhi.
UTTAR PRADESH IN ‘CAMPAIGN’ MODE
The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered a special campaign in every village from January 16 to January 30 to ensure every eligible farmer in the state gets the upcoming 13th installment under the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme.
Uttar Pradesh has the biggest chunk of farmers than any other state under the scheme. As many as 2.41 crore farmers from Uttar Pradesh got the 11th installment of the PM-Kisan Nidhi Scheme last year. But the number dropped drastically to just 1.79 crore farmers when it came to the 12th installment given last year. This meant 62 lakh farmers in UP then missed out.
The order stated that while 2.41 crore farmers in the state got the 11th installment, only 2.13 crore farmers presently have their land records marked and of them, only 1.48 crore farmers have got their e-KYC done on the PM-Kisan portal. Further, only 1.64 crore farmers in Uttar Pradesh have seeded their bank accounts with Aadhaar or NPCI, the order says.
UP has hence marked a special two-week long campaign from January 16, in every village of the state to help farmers get their records updated. The job involves registering land records of almost 28 lakh farmers, getting e-KYC updated of almost 53 lakh farmers and ensure Aadhaar seeding of the bank accounts of 73 lakh farmers in the state by January 30.
Revenue and administration officials have been asked to camp in villages to work with farmers and banks will also be roped in to ensure the bank accounts of farmers are seeded properly.
FARMERS IN OTHER STATES ALSO LOST OUT
A senior central government official said all other states have been sensitised towards the cause to ensure maximum farmers get benefit of the next installment of PM Kisan Nidhi. In Maharashtra, another big state, the number of farmers who got the 12th installment stood at 89.87 lakh, down from 1.01 crore farmers, who had got the 11th installment last year.
In Punjab, only 2.05 lakh farmers got the 12th installment against nearly 17 lakh farmers who got the 11th installment. The drop in Rajasthan was also significant, from 71 lakh farmers to only 54.7 lakh farmers who got the last installment.
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