India: States told to ready list of farmers for PM-KISAN scheme

• The Centre has asked all states to quickly furnish lists of farmers eligible to receive money under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme so that the first instalment of INR2,000 can be paid by 1 Mar 19.
• Union agriculture secretary Sanjay Agarwal spoke to bureaucrats heading farm ministries in various states on 5 Feb 19 in a videocall, and urged them to meet the deadline.
• The Centre has given states a broad guideline which defines a small and marginal farmer family as a family comprising the husband, the wife and minor children (up to 18 years of age) who collectively own cultivable land up to two hectares as per the land records of the concerned state/union territory.
• Spelling out basic details of the scheme (called PM-KISAN), the Centre has told states that only those whose names appear in land records as on 1 Feb 19, will be eligible for benefit under the scheme, but “changes thereafter in land records will not be considered for eligibility of the benefit to the new landholder for the next five years”.
• The guidelines say the existing land-ownership system in the concerned state or union territory will be used to identify beneficiaries, whose names should appear in land records on 1 Feb 19.
• The guideline further stated that if the landholder farmer family has land parcels spread across different village/revenue records, then land will be pooled for determining the benefit.
• The states were also told that ‘Aadhaar’ may be optional for farmers getting first instalment of INR2,000 under the scheme, but the beneficiaries will have to “compulsorily” provide this unique identification number for getting subsequent instalments post-31 Mar 19.
• The state agriculture secretary quoted above said pooling of records will be a challenge. “The identification is easier if a farmer has landholding in a single district but if he has land holding in multiple districts then identification and verification would be difficult,” he said.
• The ministry will soon set up an exclusive portal for the scheme where all states and UTs will be required to upload certified district-wise lists of beneficiaries which, an official said, would ultimately pave the way for a centralised database of all farmers.

External Link: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/states-told-to-ready-list-of-farmers-for-rs-6k-dole/articleshow/67860812.cms

External Link: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/land-bought-after-feb-1-no-pm-kisan-cover-for-5-years/articleshow/67845718.cms