Centre ropes in CSC to speed up PM-Kisan enrolment

To ensure wider coverage of the farmers' income support scheme, Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan), the Agriculture Ministry has now roped in the Common Service Centre (CSC) to speed up the enrolment process.

The Ministry of Agriculture has tied up with CSC, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) under the Ministry of IT and Electronics, to fulfil the target of enrolling 14 crore marginal farmers across India.

PM-Kisan is a 100 per cent income support scheme funded by the Centre which was launched in December 2018. Under the scheme, an income support of Rs 6,000 per year is provided to all farmer families across the country in three equal installments of Rs 2,000 each every four months.

"CSC has been roped in by the Ministry of Agriculture to expedite the coverage of the scheme. Over three lakh CSCs spread across the length and breadth of the country will now start enrolling farmers eligible for the PM-Kisan scheme. Farmers can now visit nearby CSCs to get enrolled and avail the scheme's benefits.

"CSCs have also been given the mandate to make any changes in previous enrolments. Any farmer who is already a beneficiary and wants to make changes in his enrolment form like address or nominee can visit CSCs to get them done," said Dinesh Tyagi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), CSC.

Tyagi said that CSC has already been doing the enrolment work for PM Kisan Maan Dhan Yojana, a Centre sponsored pension scheme for farmers.

Now with the mandate for PM-Kisan, CSCs will emerge as a major social support centre for marginal farmers across India.

"All village level entrepreneurs who run our CSCs have been directed to speed up enrollments under both the schemes so that maximum farmers and their families are benefited from them," Tyagi added.

Sources in the Agriculture Ministry said that since its launch in 2018, only 7 crore farmers have been enrolled in the PK-Kisan scheme against a target of 14 crore.

In a high-level meeting, it was decided to rope in CSC to speed up the enrolment process. Till now, local patwaris, revenue officers and nodal officers (PM-Kisan) nominated by the state governments were responsible for the enrolment of farmers. Similarly, the online self-registration mechanism for farmers also failed to pick up.

( With inputs from IANS )