Centre Pays Around Rs 10,500 Crore In First Two Tranches Of PM Kisan Scheme
The first two tranches of Modi’s farm income support scheme has cost about Rs 10,500 crore.
Around 3.1 crore small farmers have so far received the first tranche of Rs 2,000 each under the PM-Kisan scheme while over 2.1 crore have got the second installment as well, costing Rs 10,500 crore to the exchequer, a senior Agriculture Ministry official said.
The government had announced that 12 crore farmers would be covered under the the Rs 75,000-crore Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. Each farmers will get Rs 6,000 per year in three equal installments. Many states have not submitted data of beneficiaries.
However, the Election Commission of India allowed the Union Agriculture Ministry to transfer the first and second tranche of the payment to all those beneficiaries registered under the scheme before the Model Code of Conduct that kicked in from March 10.
“About 4.76 crore farmers got registered under the PM-Kisan scheme before March 10. We have been able to disburse first installment to 3.10 crore farmers and the second installment to 2.10 crore farmers so far,” the ministry official told PTI.
Total Rs 10,500 crore has been disbursed so far, comprising the first and second installments, he said.
In the budget, the NDA government allocated a sum of Rs 20,000 crore for the 2018-19 under the scheme.
The scheme was formally launched at national level by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Feb. 24 at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh by transferring the first installment to 1.01 crore farmers, amounting Rs 2,021 crore.
In Uttar Pradesh, the first instalment has been released to around one crore farmers so far, while in Andhra Pradesh to 30 lakh farmers.
The official further said that Punjab and Haryana are among the top beneficiary states as the two states have completed the registration of its farmers under the scheme.
Small and marginal farmers who hold cultivable land of up to 2 hectares are eligible under the scheme.