PM Kisan: Non-Eligible Beneficiaries Received Benefits Worth Rs 42 Crores, as per CAG Report

The PM-Kisan is a central government scheme that provides income support to all landholding farmer families in the country to supplement their financial requirements. It was inaugurated in February 2019.

The government deposits Rs. 6000 per year in three equal quarterly instalments of Rs 2000 each every four months into the bank accounts of qualified farmers who have registered and met the program's eligibility requirements under the PM Kisan Yojana programme.

According to the CAG report, payments totaling Rs 1.31 crore were given to state government retirees due to inaccurate identification, non-verification, and gaps in monitoring of the PM-Kisan scheme. These recipients belonged to Group C and above, and the audit recommended that this money be recovered.

Seven districts, 14 blocks (two blocks from each selected district), and 84 villages (six villages from each selected block) were chosen at random from Haryana's 22 districts, 140 blocks, and 7,356 villages for the audit. The audit was carried out in 2021.

According to the study, as of June 1, 2021, the audit discovered that 3,131 ineligible farmers had received 16,802 instalments of Rs 2,000 each, totaling Rs 3.36 crore. Only 51 of these farmers had refunded 207 instalments totaling Rs 4.14 lakh.

Similarly, 38,109 income tax payers covered by this scheme received 1,86,677 Rs 2,000 instalments totaling Rs 37.34 crore. Only four farmers had received refunds totaling Rs 0.46 lakh. "As a result, an amount of Rs 40.70 crore has been released to ineligible and income tax payees, of which only Rs 4.60 lakh has been recovered and an amount of Rs 40.65 crore remains unrecovered," according to CAG.

According to the report, the Agriculture department indicated in a reply dated December 15, 2021 that Rs 23.94 lakh had been collected from 246 ineligible beneficiaries and Rs 138.02 lakh had been recovered from 1,455 income tax payee beneficiaries. 

39 beneficiaries received Rs 4.48 lakh in benefits along with their spouses/minor children in violation of the regulations. The audit also discovered 66 deceased beneficiaries and 19 beneficiaries who did not own the land but received Rs 2.82 lakh in benefits.