In 2 yrs, Maharashtra farmers ineligible for PM-Kisan aid granted ₹358.99 cr

The state government has begun the process of recovering the amount paid to them.

Nearly 571,745 farmers who were not eligible for aid under the PM-Kisan (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi ) cash transfer scheme were given ₹358.99 crore over the last two years. The state government has begun the process of recovering the amount paid to them.

The scheme involves the transfer of ₹6,000 a year to poor farmers in three instalments. (PTI)

The scheme involves the transfer of ₹6,000 a year to poor farmers in three instalments. Thus far, eight instalments have been paid and the ninth will be credited on August 9. A scrutiny of the beneficiaries has found a large number of beneficiaries in the state. Of the 571, 745, 262,960 are income tax payees, who were outed after the tax department linked the list of IT payees with the list of beneficiaries. The remaining 308,785 were termed ineligible for other reasons.

The information has been obtained under RTI by Hindustan Times from the state agriculture commissionerate.

On July 22, HT reported how 4.2 million ineligible farmers have received ₹2,900 crore under the scheme across the country. Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar told Parliament that the largest numbers of such ineligible beneficiaries were in Assam, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Bihar.

“The Maharashtra government requested the Union government to link IT payees with the list of beneficiaries in this scheme. The Centre informed us about the ineligible beneficiaries after doing this... Only one person from a home of the couple and their minor children can avail the benefit, but in some cases both more than one member of the family applied,” said state agriculture commissioner Dheeraj Kumar. “We have asked district collectors to expedite the recovery of the money wrongly credited to farmers,” he added.

There may be some challenges on that front, another official familiar with the matter said.

“We recently filed an FIR in Nanded after we found that 30,000 fake accounts of beneficiaries were created by creating fake user IDs...”

Vinay Kumar Awate, deputy commissioner, Agriculture, said, “The number of the ineligible beneficiaries may rise as we have also found some beneficiaries from other states too...”