States to physically verify PM-Kisan beneficiaries

New Delhi: The Centre has asked states to physically verify 5% of PM-Kisan scheme beneficiaries randomly to ascertain that money has gone to bona fide farmers. There have been complaints that some money has been transferred to ineligible farmers.The minimum income support scheme, under which farmers get Rs 6,000 annually in three equal instalments, has excluded income tax payees, retired and serving government employees other than in Group D, professionals such as doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, public representatives like serving and former parliamentarians, and other people from higher economic status.“The scheme is being audited by the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General). We have asked states to provide us the payment details and conduct physical verification of 5% beneficiaries to assess whether money is going in the right hands. They will randomly select beneficiaries and track them at their homes,” an agriculture ministry official, who deals with the scheme, said on condition of anonymity.The government has disbursed more than Rs 93,000 crore directly in farmers’ bank accounts since the launch of the scheme in February 2019. “We have the highest beneficiaries from Uttar Pradesh (26.4 million), followed by Maharashtra (11.07 million) and Madhya Pradesh (8.18 million). This data is digitally verified by state governments. Now the central government wants to know the gap if any within the data,” said the official.The Centre is already in the process of designing a mechanism in consultation with state governments to identify beneficiaries who are in the exclusion list.The official said it has come to the government’s notice that many state and central government’s serving and retired employees are getting benefits of PM-Kisan scheme.“We have written to the Public Financial Management System under the finance ministry to share data of central government employees. We can then match the data with the PM-Kisan list of beneficiaries to identify such central government salaried employees who are getting benefitted. We will write to state governments also,” said the official.

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