The government is scheduled to transfer over ₹20,000 crore to bank accounts of more than 10 crore farmers of the country under the flagship Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) scheme on January 1. Besides about ₹14 crore will be given to over 350 farmer producers organisations (FPOs) as part of government equity.
“Prime minister Narendra Modi will transfer the benefits over a virtual event as a new year gift to farmers, sources said. Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar has already informed farmers through SMS about the event when this transfer to bank accounts will take place,” sources said.
The Centre has so far released over ₹1.61-lakh crore to farmers under the PM-Kisan scheme since it was launched in February 2019.
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Modi on August 9 facilitated the transfer about ₹19,500 crore to over 9.75 crore beneficiaries for the August-November cycle in one-go.
An estimated 14 crore eligible land-owning farmers are entitled to receive ₹6,000 each, every year in three equal installments under the PM-Kisan scheme. While the estimate of farmers’ number was based on the agri census of 2015-16, the Centre is working on a project to identify the exact number by linking the digitised land records with PM-Kisan data.
While 12.6 crore farmers’ data have been received under PM-Kisan, out of these 1 crore are pending for correction/validation, sources said. The government has allocated ₹65,000 crore to the PM-Kisan scheme for FY22 and farmers have received ₹44,212 crore, so far in current fiscal.
The Centre in February 2020 had announced the ₹6,865-crore FPO scheme to be spent for setting up of 10,000 new FPOs and ensuring their growth by FY28. Budget allocation for FY22 has been raised 40 per cent to ₹700 crore. New FPOs are entitled to receive direct financial assistance up to ₹18 lakh each over 3 years under the scheme.
The Centre contributes a matching equity grant up to ₹2,000/farmer member of each FPO with a limit of ₹15 lakh per organisation and a credit guarantee facility up to ₹2 crore per FPO.