The Central government will transfer over Rs. 12,000 crore in the bank accounts of more than 6 crore farmers under its flagship PM-Kisan yojana tomorrow i.e. 2nd January 2020. Sources said that Indian PM Narendra Modi will release the money as a new year gift to the farmers from Karnataka.
Sources further told that no farmer has received the installment of rupees two thousand since 1st December as the plan was to disburse the amount at one-go in new year. This is the last tranche of installment this financial year & at least 6.5 crore farmers will get the benefit of the PM-Kisan yojana as their data have already been verified with Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. Disbursal to more than 6.5 crore farmers will depend on new enrollment under PM-Kisan scheme as well as data verification through Aadhaar that is compulsory from 1 December.
Out of 14 crore farmers likely to get the PM-Kisan yojana benefits, the Central government has collected data of around 9.2 crore farmers as on 29th December 2019. it is important to mention that West Bengal, with over 70 lakh growers, is the only state out of the ambit of PM-Kisan yojana as it has refused to share & authenticate farmers’ data. Moreover, Uttar Pradesh is the top-performing state that has collected data of around 2 crore farmers, so far.
The government might be able to save around 40 percent of the budgeted Rs. 75,000 crore this financial year under PM-Kisan scheme while the total disbursal can be around Rs. 45,000 crore. Till 30th November 2019, the government had transferred Rs. 35,955.66 crore into bank accounts of 7.62 crore; 6.5 crore & 3.86 crore farmers as the first, second & third installments, respectively, since the commencement of the scheme. Of this amount, around Rs. 6,000 crore was distributed in FY19.
The then Finance Minister Piyush Goyal had announced the direct-benefit transfer scheme in his Interim Budget in February. At first, the target was to cover 12 crore small & marginal farmers (having up to two hectare), with each getting Rs. 6,000 per year in three equal installments of Rs. 2,000. But after coming back into power in May, the NDA government had expanded the yojana to cover all the farmers, benefiting additional 2 crore cultivators.
