The number of beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana has crossed ten crores, increasing more than three times from 3.16 crore farmers covered under the 1st installment in 2019, the Centre informed on Monday.
The announcement has come hours after Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress President attacked the Centre over the scheme, claiming that the number of beneficiaries has declined with every installment.
Under PM Kisan which was announced in February 2019, the Centre government provides financial assistance of Rs. 6,000 per year in three equal installments to farmers.
The Union Agriculture Ministry in a statement said, "The release of benefits for any installment period under the scheme has now crossed ten crore farmers from 3.16 crore for the first installment period -- more than three times increase in over three years".
It added that PM Kisan has successfully provided monetary help of more than Rs 2 lakh crore to crores of farmers over three years (out of this, over Rs 1.6 crore has been disbursed after the lockdown due to the COVID pandemic).
Till now, the government has released 12 installments of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana. The fund has been directly transferred to the bank accounts of farmers.
The ministry said that PM Kisan Yojana has been a game changer in reaching out directly to the farmers in India, every four months, and in time of their need.
The agriculture ministry also described the scheme as one of the largest DBT (Direct benefit transfer) schemes in the world.
It said that "The scheme has been able to reach out to crores of beneficiaries, with no middlemen involved in between. Maintaining absolute transparency in the procedure of registration & verification of beneficiaries, the Centre has been able to transfer benefits within minutes.”
It further said many studies have shown that the scheme has helped cultivators towards productive investment in various agriculture activities.
Mentioning that the scheme is an evolving one, it said that PM Kisan Yojana was started with the eligibility of the farmers determined by self-certification by each farmer. Slowly improvements have been made in it to make it easier for farmers.
The ministry also said that the success of PM Kisan lies in the changes made over time for the verification & validation of farmer’s details. Compulsory fields have been put in place since beginning of the first level check.
Taking benefit of digitalization, the agriculture ministry has also initiated measures for building a digital ecosystem for agriculture or agri stack.
It added that creating the agri stack will also provide an opportunity for the government in saturating the scheme with all eligible farmers and to recheck all the existing beneficiaries, according to the operational guidelines of the scheme.
Not only this the land details of the existing farmers are therefore being seeded, according to the land records of the states, so that in the future dynamic linkage with the digital land records of the states is ensured.
Additionally, the e-KYC of the farmers and payments using the Aadhaar Payment Bridge (APB) has also been started to bring in further transparency in the yojana.
