Government to send money directly to farmers’ accounts if states don’t cooperate: Gajendra Singh Shekhawat

New Delhi: The government will transfer money to farmers even if states do not cooperate in sending lists of farmers eligible to receive Rs 6,000 per year under the PM-KISAN scheme announced in this year’s budget.

Minister of state for agriculture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told ET that the Centre has the data of farmers across the country, which can be used to implement the scheme with the help of the National Informatics Centre, which is being roped in for the exercise.

“Even if states don’t participate in the exercise, we can send money directly to the farmers’ account.


Though the coverage would be less in those states as we would be needing information from states for verification of all the data,” he said.

Shekhawat, however, said that the Centre may not be having verified data of all the 12 crore farmers.

“That’s the reason why we want states to pitch in with their database so that we can verify and expand the scale,” he said.

The agriculture ministry wants to transfer the first instalment of Rs 2,000 by March 1. It has directed all the states to furnish data at the earliest.

Meanwhile, the agriculture ministry is also working closely with National Informatic Centre (NIC) to assess data of farmers who are enrolled with various subsidy schemes of central government.

“NIC has all the data of beneficiaries of our various schemes. It also has data of million of soil cards which will help us in identifying farmers owning up to two hectare of land.

We will be able to identify verified beneficiaries of around 3 crore from this data,” said a senior official.

The government plans to cover all the states at one go so that the impact of this scheme becomes big. The BJP ruled states have already started the exercise and most of them are likely to furnish data by next 15 days. The problems are with non BJP states especially West Bengal, which has categorically denied to participate in the scheme.

Congress ruled states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab have shown reluctance in providing data in time.