Many Congress-ruled states haven’t rolled out PM-Kisan
States, including Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress party was voted to power recently, and Karnataka have not implemented the scheme, although Punjab and Chhattisgarh have.
The process requires state governments to cooperate at every step – starting with sending the beneficiary data to the Centre.
New Delhi: A fortnight after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-KISAN), which promises Rs 6,000 per year to farmers with small landholdings, some Congress ruled states have refused to cooperate and enable the dole to be passed on to the beneficiaries.
States, including Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress party was voted to power recently, and Karnataka have not implemented the scheme, although Punjab and Chhattisgarh have. So far, 27.4 million small and marginal farmers have received the first instalment of Rs 2,000 under PM-KISAN. About 30% of the beneficiaries are in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, where Modi launched the scheme on February 24.
The process requires state governments to cooperate at every step – starting with sending the beneficiary data to the Centre, which screens it for missing information and discrepancies in the names of bank account holders and applicants. This sanitised data is sent back to the state governments, which validate it through district collectors. After this, the final beneficiary list is sent to the state governments, which are required to sign fund-transfer requests, a prerequisite for the Centre to deposit the money into the bank accounts of farmers.
Although Karnataka has validated the beneficiary data for 10 farmers, it has refused to sign the fund-transfer requests, according to people aware of the matter. Madhya Pradesh has not sent any beneficiary data. The Rajasthan government has sent a beneficiary list of 124,000 farmers, which has to be validated, according to data provided to ET. “A few thousand have been validated from Rajasthan but the state has not signed the fund-transfer request, so it hasn’t moved,” a senior government official said. The data reveals that after much prodding, Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh signed the fund-transfer request on March 8 and the first instalment of Rs 2,000 was sent on March 8. Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal has refused to join the scheme.
Punjab is the only Congress-ruled state that promptly joined PM-KISAN. According to officials, 1million small and marginal farmers have got the first instalment in Punjab and the state has almost exhausted its projected beneficiary quota. “Every state has a potential beneficiary list as per Crop Census 2015-16. This projected list has indicated that Punjab has almost covered its small and marginal farmer population,” an official told ET.
