The Centre is likely to miss this year's target of reimbursement under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, mainly due to lack of updated data about farmers to be given by state governments.
An official of the Department of Expenditure said that “The government would not be able to meet the target this year under the PM Kisan yojana. Because of a tight revenue position and lack of authentic or correct data from state governments. So we expect to cover only 50% of farmers this year".
The PM-Kisan that came into effect from 1st December 2018 is a minimum support scheme providing Rs 2,000 each in three instalments to the farmers of the country. It has identified around 14 crore farmers to be benefitted under this scheme & had made a budgetary provision of Rs 75,000 crore for this financial year.
But, out of the estimated 14 crore farmers, the central government had not been able to collect even complete information, forget disbursing funds and as on 30 December, it has data of only nine crore farmers, the official further told. Until now, the Centre has spent nearly Rs 45,000 crore under PM-Kisan scheme. In addition, the centre has assumed that about 50,000 farmers, out of this list could be fake because of failure to provide authentic details.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week said that a total of Rs 12,000 crore has been deposited under the 3rd tranche of PM-Kisan scheme, covering 6 crore farmers of India.
In the meantime, the Centre has blamed it on some states for not sharing complete details of the farmers. The official also said that “West Bengal has more than 70 lakh farmers, but it has refused to share the details and that is why we are not able to disburse there".
Farmers can easily check the status or beneficiary list of PM-Kisan at its official website -pmkisan.gov.in
