All eligible beneficiaries under PM-Kisan should be covered: Tomar

New Delhi, Feb 24 Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar, on Wednesday urged the states to ensure that all eligible beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan), a flagship scheme of the Modi-government, are covered.

While addressing a programme on completion of two years of PM-Kisan, the Union minister informed that Rs 1,15,638.87 crore has been transferred to more than 10.75 crore beneficiaries since the inception of the scheme.

The scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 24, 2019, from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The scheme was initially made effective from December 1, 2018, aiming to provide a payment of Rs 6,000 per year to the farmers' families with cultivable land holding up to 2 hectares, subject to certain exclusions, but the mandate of the scheme was further extended to cover all farmers irrespective of the size of their landholding and subject to the prevailing exclusion criteria. The revised scheme came into effect from April 1, 2019.

The financial benefit of Rs 6,000 is transferred by the Central government in three four-monthly instalments of Rs 2,000 each over the year directly into the bank accounts of the eligible farmers under the direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode.

Praising the hard work put in by the farmers, the minister recalled the contribution made by them during Covid times. He said regardless of the adversity, the hard work of the farmers has the potential to get the country out of any crisis.

The Centre has approved an annual budgetary provision of Rs 65,000 crore for the scheme for the financial year 2020-21.

Speaking about the sufficient budgetary allocation under the scheme, Tomar requested the state governments to run campaigns for the registration of the beneficiaries in their states so that not a single needy farmer remains deprived of the benefits of this scheme.

On the occasion, Tomar, who is also the Union Minister for Rural Development, Panchayat Raj and Food Processing Industries, awarded the top-performing states and districts for their exemplary work with respect to the implementation of the PM-Kisan scheme.

In the category of the highest percentage of Aadhar authenticated beneficiaries, Karnataka bagged the award with 97 per cent Aadhar authenticated data, while more than 90 per cent beneficiaries in the state are being paid benefits via the Aadhar based payment mode.

In the category of good performance in physical verification and grievance redressal, the award went to Maharashatra which completed 99 per cent physical verification with 60 per cent grievance redressal.

Uttar Pradesh bagged the award for the fastest take-off as nearly 1.53 crore farmers were registered during the period between December 2018 and March 2019.

In the category of the highest percentage of Aadhar authenticated beneficiaries in the NE States and Hilly Terrain, Arunachal Pradesh bagged the award with 98 per cent Aadhar authentication.

For good performance in physical verification and grievance redressal in the same category, the award went to Himachal Pradesh.

The event was attended by Kailash Chaudhary, MoS, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, along with the concerned ministers of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh, among others.

( With inputs from IANS )