Over 1.2 crore farmers are yet to receive any benefit under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), the Modi government flagship income support scheme for farmers, that was launched weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last year.
According to Agriculture Ministry data, the Centre has given payouts totalling Rs 50,029 crores to over 8.3 crore unique beneficiaries since the back-dated launch of the scheme in February last year.
The PM-KISAN initiative was announced in the Union Budget on February 1 last year to give income support to farmers in three installments of Rs 2,000 each every year. The scheme was implemented on December 2018.
The government had estimated total landholdings across the country at 14 crore out of which it had gathered data for over 9.5 crore farmers as on date. Of the 9.5 crore identified farmers, 8.3 crore have received income support from the government, while 1.2 crore were yet to receive any benefit, the Agriculture Ministry informed the Lok Sabha.
“The reasons for non-payment of benefits to the eligible farmer families include mismatch of names in land records and Aadhaar Cards, failure in account validation ...due to reasons like wrong account number, wrong IFSC etc,” Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said.
BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh tops the list with over 43 lakh farmers yet to receive benefits under the scheme, while Congress-ruled Rajasthan came a distant second with 12.48 lakh farmers deprived of income support announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In Madhya Pradesh, 11.28 lakh farmers were yet to receive benefits under PM-KISAN, while in Maharashtra the number was 10.97 lakh. In Assam, 9.58 lakh farmers did not receive any benefits under the scheme, while 4.85 lakh farmers were deprived of income support from the Centre.
In Karnataka, 1.75 lakh farmers were yet to receive any benefit under the PM-KISAN initiative. Of the 84.18 lakh land holdings in Karnataka, the government has gathered data on 50.73 lakh farmers, of which 48.98 lakh have received benefits totalling to Rs 2,702 crore.