The government said that only 10% of the amount transferred to ineligible beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana has been recovered until now.
Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said, around Rs 2326.88 crore has been paid to ineligible beneficiaries of PM-Kisan scheme, of which, Rs 231.76 crore is recovered.
The minister said, “During the verification process, if it was found that Rs 2,326.88 crore was transferred to 40, 48,049 ineligible beneficiaries of the scheme, including income tax payees…”
In a written reply Tomar said, “The Union government has issued a Standard Operation Guideline to recognize such undeserving beneficiaries & recover the amount from them”.
As per the government data, recoveries have been made in 18 states & Union Territories. Tamil Nadu has recovered the highest amount i.e. Rs 158.57 crore out of the Rs 321.31 crore distributed to the ineligible beneficiaries in the state. Maharashtra recovered Rs 57 crore and Gujarat has recovered Rs 6.30 crore.
Among states that are yet to make recoveries, the biggest amount of Rs 171.47 crore was disbursed to 1.78 lakh ineligible beneficiaries in UP, followed by Odisha, according to the data.
In terms of the number of ineligible farmers, Tamil Nadu topped the list with 6.9 lakh cases followed by Assam (5.8 lakh); Punjab (4.6 lakh); Maharashtra (3.5 lakh) & Gujarat (2.1 lakh).
In total, Rs 1.15 lakh crore has been distributed to 10.74 crore beneficiaries under PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana till 22nd January 2021, as per the data.
Tomar said, “The eligible beneficiaries are not deprived of the benefits of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana as it is a continuous & ongoing Scheme and as and when data of the eligible beneficiaries are received from States, the requisite sum is transferred to the account of beneficiaries via Direct Benefit Transfer”.
Under PM-Kisan scheme, the government provides Rs 6,000 per year to eligible farmer families in three quarterly installments of Rs 2,000.
