Government expects PM KISAN scheme to reach 12 crore farmer families
As five south Indian states claim to have added almost all the eligible beneficiary farmers to the PM KISAN scheme, it is set to be scaled down.
As five south Indian states claim to have added almost all the eligible beneficiary farmers to the PM KISAN scheme, it is set to be scaled down.
At less than 60 percent enrollment when compared to the 2015-16 agriculture census figures, southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have capped their entries.
Confirming the CNBC-TV18 story, Vivek Agarwal, joint secretary and CEO, PM KISAN said, "Southern states have claimed saturation. We are doing village-level surveys and states are doing saturation drives to find as many beneficiaries as possible. But not much is added now. We have also opened up an app for those farmers who may have been left out. They can directly apply for the scheme. But in Southern states, even the direct application process is not adding many farmers."
Currently, on an all India basis only 61 percent enrollments have happened as compared to the baseline of the 2015-16 agriculture census.
At the current rate, the government estimates to reach 12 crore farmer families for the PM KISAN scheme, much lesser than the earlier estimate of 14.5 crore farmer families.
PM KISAN was started with agriculture census 2015-16 recorded land holdings, which was just an estimation. The assumption was that one landholding will have one beneficiary, Agarwal said, speaking exclusively to CNBC-TV18.
"There can be a landholding that has more than one farmer recorded as a co-sharer and there can be a situation where one farmer owns more than one farm holding. We have come across many such situations across different states," Agarwal said.
Kerala has submitted that many of the large farmer families are NRIs, and do not reside in India. NRIs are not eligible to be beneficiaries under PM KISAN scheme.
"In northern states like Punjab, families are doing mutations in land holdings for close relatives. In the last five years, family and land holdings have split and that has led to almost double the number of farmer families being recorded under PM KISAN scheme," he said.
"Data preparedness of every state and how well they keep their land records will determine the success. We are now building a complete repository of farmers land data and linking it to other subsidy and farmer schemes," he added.
Even with the 18-20 percent downward revision in the beneficiary list, the government is hopeful of utilising the entire budgeted amount of Rs 75,000 crore for the coming fiscal.
First Published: Feb 13, 2020 10:40 PM IST
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