KISAN beneficiaries get Rs 4,366 crore pan India

The government has deposited Rs 4,366.4 crore in bank accounts of over 21.8 million farmers under the PM KISAN scheme, but some large states ruled by parties opposed to the BJP have not sent lists of beneficiaries, officials said.

Latest data says BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh leads the tally, with 7.45 million beneficiaries, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 3.21 million, Gujarat at 2.55 million, Telangana at 1.44 million, Tamil Nadu at 1.4 million and Maharashtra at 1.15 million.

“We are transferring money to the accounts of 5,000-7,000 farmers everyday as and when we are getting the data. Now it’s a continuous process and will finish by March 31 — the deadline for transferring the first instalment,” said a senior agriculture department official.


The official said that so far not a single farmer from states such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal has benefited. “Among Congress-ruled states, 36 farmers from Chhattisgarh and only three farmers from Karnataka have received the money. However, Congress-ruled Punjab is an exception, with over 263,000 beneficiaries,” he said, adding there were over 800,000 beneficiaries in Odisha. The government has asked states to recover money from accounts of farmers who have been found ineligible after money transfer.

“We have found that money has been transferred to those farmers also who belong to the exclusion category such as government servants, payers of income tax and public representatives,” the official said. He said the number of such farmers is not known and the onus is on the state governments to verify the beneficiaries. “It’s not our responsibility to identify or track such farmers,” he said.