PM Kisan Update: Many Beneficiaries Left Out of the Scheme: Study

According to the latest report, about 29% of the farmer-beneficiaries of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana in Andhra Pradesh haven’t received the full benefits that account for Rs 1,168 crore. PM-Kisan is one such beneficial government scheme that provides financial assistance to all small and marginal farmers.  

Chakradhar Buddha, Director, Liberation Technology India (LibTech India) for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana says, “Our fieldwork & data analysis show that a good number of bank rejection cases and ‘State action required’ cases are unresolved for 3 to 18 months primarily because of lack of dissemination of information among officials in the rural sector and absence of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to resolve the payment issues”.

The organization consists of a team of social workers, engineers, and social scientists who work consistently to improve & ensure accountability, transparency, and democratic engagement in rural public services delivery.

Since the inception of the scheme in December 2018, about 56, 37,105 farmers have registered and are eligible to receive an amount of Rs 8,082.9 crore, but out of them, about 90,193 (1.6%) of them have been declared ineligible either by citing ‘Beneficiary is an income tax payee’ or ‘Beneficiary is Dead’.

It must be noted that PM Kisan beneficiaries can also take benefit of PM Kisan Mandhan Yojana, which is a pension scheme for farmers. 

However, 39,75,374 farmers have got all the installments amounting to Rs 6,915 crore, while 16,61,731 (29%) haven’t received even one installment amounting to Rs 1,168 crore.

Buddha further says in order to understand the ‘exclusions’ LibTech researchers Venkata Krishna Kagga & Ajay Palle Swearo have checked & analyzed the PM Kisan data for more than 56 lakh registered farmers and a random sample of 5 percent transactional level data for villages in each district of the State covering 2.85 lakh beneficiaries, using the info available as on June 26 for the 8th installment of the financial benefit, from December 2018 to June 2021.

As per the data, an estimated 7,67,940 (46%) farmers are not receiving the benefits due to bank rejections and 4,89,480 (29%) are pending State action, he added.

“Five months of field research in Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam, East Godavari, Chittoor, and Anantapur districts, combined with interviews of officials and analysis of PM Kisan data in the public domain, helped us draw this conclusion,” he explains.

Most of the Exclusions is in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh

Although, the objective of the scheme is to enhance the income of farmers by extending the financial assistance of Rs 6,000 per annum, about 4,17,212 farmers registered from the State haven’t got even a single payment under the scheme. 

As per the study, the most ‘exclusions’ are observed in Nellore district, where farmers have received as low as Rs 365.3 crore, while their counterparts in Anantapur district received the highest of Rs 750 crore.

“Kadapa and Vizianagaram have the least amount of dues in the State with Rs. 58.2 crore and Rs. 62.7 crore respectively, while Anantapur, Chittoor, East Godavari, Guntur, and Prakasam districts have more than ₹100 crores due to each and require urgent steps to resolve the payment issue,” says Buddha.

Apart from this, the other reasons vary from Aadhaar-related problems to payment being under process, he says, attributing the pending of Aadhaar card-related mostly to lack of understanding on the part of the officials.