Nearly a fortnight after nationalised banks in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada failing to link the Aadhaar connected account numbers of 3,500 dairy farmers with the National Payment Corporation of India came to light, there is no headway in making the farmers get the milk incentive due to them.
Hence, ₹1.5-crore incentive is still lying with the Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd. (DKMUL). According to a DKMUL official, if there is further delay, the government is likely to withdraw the amount lying with the union.
It appears some bank managers did not know how to link the accounts with the NPCI.
Deputy Manager of DKMUL Madhusudhan Kamat told The Hindu ,“Two days ago, I received a call from a manager of a nationalised bank asking me how to link the accounts with NPCI,” he said. The banks are yet to take it seriously and act upon, he said. Mr. Kamat said farmers have given their Aadhaar number to the banks as a part of Know Your Customer (KYC) norm. But some banks have not linked such accounts with the NPCI. If there is further delay in the linkage, the State government will take back the incentive lying with the union.
The incentive of farmers lying with the union ranged between ₹20 and ₹40,000, he said. Each beneficiary got ₹5 per litre as incentive.
Mr. Kamat had highlighted the issue at the District Consultative Meeting of Bankers here on December 20. But the District Lead Bank office is yet to send the proceedings of the meeting to banks.
Expressing helplessness, District Lead Bank Manager Raghava Yajamanya told The Hindu , “It is an issue that banks have to address. We (at the District Consultative Committee) can only make suggestions.”
He said that the regional heads of the banks ought to have taken action by this time. The proceedings of the meeting would be sent to banks shortly.
Mr. Kamat said that it is mandatory since August 2016 to credit any subsidy or incentive of the government to the Aadhaar-linked bank account.
Such accounts should have been linked with the National Payment Corporation of India.
Bank accounts of 98% of 65,000 milk producers associated with the union have been linked with the NPCI.
