E-Paper
Cannot implement PM Kisan Samman Nidhi yojna in MP because of time constraint, says state govt
Madhya Pradesh government has claimed that it is unable to implement the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana in the state right now as the officials are busy with implementing the farm-loan waiver scheme
The Madhya Pradesh government has claimed that it is unable to implement the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana in the state right now as the officials are busy with implementing the farm-loan waiver scheme and have not been able to provide requisite information about eligible farmers.
This explanation came after the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party accused the Congress party government of not allowing the farmers in the state to benefit from the Central scheme.
Under PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna, a farmer having not more than two hectare land will get Rs 6000 annually through direct benefit transfer (DBT). A sum of Rs 2000 will be deposited in a farmer’s bank account every quarterly to help him purchase seeds, fertilizer etc.
The state government was supposed to provide information on such farmers to the Central government by February 25. However, no information has been provided to the central government so far.
Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Kamal Nath, on Thursday, said, “It’s not an easy task. We have to verify each and every bank account so that there is no mistake. If the central government really intended to benefit farmers it should have introduced the scheme long back.”
According to officials of the revenue department they will have to check land records of members of more than 6 millions farmers’ families and about 15 millions bank accounts to prepare a list of those eligible under the scheme.
The verification process has to be conducted through local revenue officials (patwaris) who are presently engaged in implementation of the loan waiver scheme for farmers introduced by the state government, a state government official said.
As per the state government’s claims, under the state government’s Jai Kisan Rin Maafi Yojna about 5.5 millions farmers are to be given the benefit of loans amounting to about Rs 50,000 crore. In the first phase, the government will complete the exercise of providing loan benefit of more than Rs 10,000 crore to about 2.5 millions farmers in the next couple of days.
State’s principal secretary (revenue), Manish Rastogi, said, “We are preoccupied with farmers loan waiver scheme implementation. But, this doesn’t mean that Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna is not on our priority.”
He said, “The state government has earmarked Rs 27 crore for the same. The state has 15 million bank accounts of more than 6 millions farmer families. A patwari will be given Rs 18 per account to be spent on procuring documents, its photocopy etc to verify the accounts and also check the records of land holding of farmers.”
Rastogi said some states could provide data to the Centre immediately as they were running similar schemes for farmers and had conducted the exercise regarding verification of documents and bank accounts of the farmers. “Therefore, they were able to provide the data immediately,” he said.
State BJP executive committee member, Shailendra Sharma, said, “Kamal Nath government could have carried out the exercise of verification of farmers land records and bank accounts for PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna with its own loan waiver scheme as both are related to farmers. Verification of bank accounts is required under both the schemes. But Kamal Nath government is deliberately delaying implementation of the central government’s scheme to ensure the central government doesn’t get the credit for benefitting the farmers, in view of ensuing Lok Sabha polls.”
