A trimmed Budget cheque for India's farmer

NEW DELHI: The agriculture ministry has sought 20% less funds for the PM-KISAN scheme — that pays farmers Rs 6,000 a year — for 2020-21 because some states have been slow in identifying beneficiaries, and many existing recipients are yet to be Aadhaar verified.The ministry has sought Rs 60,000 crore for the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana for the next fiscal while the government had allocated Rs 75,000 crore for this year, an official familiar with the development told ET.This is because the government has been able to disburse only Rs 44,000 crore so far this fiscal under the scheme, the person said.The government had initially hoped to transfer money to 145 million beneficiaries, but so far only 95 million farmers have been registered under the scheme out of which 75 million have been Aadhaar verified.The rest 20 million registered farmers will get the benefit only after verification of their Aadhaar details, as agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar had last month said PM-KISAN funds will only be transferred to Aadhaar-authenticated bank accounts of eligible farmers.The ministry has sought a lower amount for the scheme to align the allocation with realities such as zero beneficiaries identified by West Bengal, the official said. “We have asked for a more realistic budget based on our existing database and potential beneficiaries,” he said.“We have to depend on state governments to verify the beneficiaries before we can transfer instalments,” the official said. 73752584 ‘Scheme helped agriculture sector’“States are not keeping pace with our speed. Therefore, we are lagging a bit, ” the official said.Apart from West Bengal, which refused to participate in the scheme, some states have been slow in implementing it. Bihar, for example, has registered only one third of its farmers because of lack of digital data. Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have identified 55-60% of their farmers as beneficiaries while Chhattisgarh has verified less than half of its farmers. Uttar Pradesh has verified 85% of the 25 million farmers it has, as per the agricultural census of 2016, while Rajasthan has registered 80% of its farmers.The government had launched this scheme in February 2019, covering small and marginal farmers owning up to two hectares of land. It disbursed over Rs 6,000 crore in last fiscal out of the budgeted Rs 20,000 crore.After getting re-elected, the Narendra Modi government had relaxed the landholding criteria, making the scheme open for large farmers as well.Experts believe the scheme has benefitted the agriculture sector.PK Joshi, fellow at National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said farmers in Uttar Pradesh used money to buy farm inputs. “We conducted a study where we found that money of PM-KISAN was used in buying fertilisers when it was disbursed before the sowing season,” he said.“It’s a very good scheme. Its success, however, will depend on the timing of disbursal. If it’s given before the onset of sowing, money will be utilised for farming purpose, else it will be diverted. States should actively participate.”Former agriculture secretary SK Patnaik said it is far too ambitious to expect such a large scheme to cover each and every beneficiary. “Since the success of this scheme depends on data from states, the Centre has done a great job in pushing them,” he said. “West Bengal, which has around 70 lakh beneficiaries, refused to participate in this scheme. Similarly, many states are struggling with farmer data, slowing down the pace. I believe in the coming years, this scheme will have more farmers under its ambit,” he said.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2td2vrw