The Centre should stop issuing notices to farmers, deemed ineligible under the PM-KISAN scheme, to demand the recovery of the money disbursed to them under the flagship scheme, the Congress said on Thursday.
The party said that while the government was “waiving lakhs of crores” worth of loans of its industrialist friends, it is taking back money from “poor annadaatas”.
Addressing a press conference here, Congress spokesperson Akhilesh Pratap Singh said that by declaring the farmers ineligible under the Kisan Samman Nidhi, the Union Government had started the process of taking back the money.
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“Instead of Kisan Samman Nidhi, this move of the Central government has become ‘Kisan Apman Nidhi’. The government, which is waiving lakhs of crores of loans of its industrialist friends, is taking back the money given to the poor ‘annadaatas’ of the country...,” Mr. Singh said.
He alleged that before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Naendra Modi government started Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) and “hastily” took bank account numbers of farmers so that money reached them before the polls.
“Now the Central government is saying that those who are not eligible for this and have received the amount under PM-KISAN should return the money. The government is also sending notices to farmers for taking back the money. The process of recovery by declaring about two crore farmers ineligible across the country should be immediately stopped,” Mr. Singh said.
Exclusion criteria
The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-KISAN), announced in February 2019, is a Central scheme that aims at providing financial assistance to landholding farmer families, subject to certain exclusion criteria, to enable them to take care of expenses related to agriculture and allied activities as well as domestic needs.
However, an advisory has been issued to States for getting refunds from ineligible beneficiaries under the PM-KISAN scheme. A facility has been created on the web portal through which any individual farmer can also return the money through Non-Tax Receipt Portal (NTRP) system.
Mr. Singh also said Uttar Pradesh should be declared drought-hit because this year there had been 44% less rainfall than average due to which all Kharif crops had dried up. ”Also, all the farmers of the State should be given compensation for their crops immediately. Interest on all agricultural loans should be postponed for six months,” he said.
