A ‘loophole’ in the conditions has apparently led to a surprisingly large number of applicants queueing up in the State for the annual cash dole of ₹6,000 for small and marginal farmers under the Centrally funded Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN).
At last count, 28.56 lakh ‘farmers’ have applied through Krishi Bhavans for the annual income support. This, when the number of Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) issued in the State so far stands at 16.99 lakh.
According to State Agriculture Department officials, the problem lies in the fact that the original conditions merely required “small and marginal farmer families having combined land holding/ownership of up to two hectares.”
There was no mention of a lower threshold. Recently, this upper limit was taken away, but there is still no mention of a lower limit. In fact, the numbers have come as a surprise to the department which was expecting it to hover around 20 lakh.
“The reason why the number of applicants has shot up is that no minimum land area has been set for the scheme. Guidelines only say cultivable land. So it is open to interpretation,” Devendra Kumar Singh, Agricultural Production Commissioner (APC), said.
The State Agriculture Department, for example, requires a farmer to have a minimum of ten cents of land for claiming pension, he pointed out.
The PM-KISAN scheme was inaugurated in February this year in the State.
Annual income
Under it, the annual income support of ₹6,000 gets transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries in three equal instalments.
Income tax payers, professionals like doctors, engineers, lawyers, chartered accountants, and architects and people’s representatives including former and present Ministers, MPs, MLAs are barred from applying.
PM-KISAN being a fully Centrally funded scheme, the Centre is apparently planning to introduce a screening system to weed out the ineligible.
Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department has urged banks to step up the process of KCCs to farmers. So far, 16.99 lakh KCCs have been issued, but there is scope to issue more, according to the department. This request was placed before the State Level Bankers’ Committee meeting held in Thiruvananthapuram last week.
