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The first instalment of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme for 2021-22 was released May 14, with Rs 20,667 crore being transferred to 95 million farmers, Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar, said.
The instalment of Rs 2,000 for the period April-July was the first of the three instalments of the current financial year.
The eligible beneficiaries usually get their first instalment between March and April but it was delayed this time. The last instalment of Rs 2,000 was paid December 25, 2020.
PM-KISAN was launched in February 2019 to provide income support by way of cash benefit to all land-holding farmers to fulfill their agriculture requirements.
A financial benefit of Rs 6,000 per year is provided to the beneficiary farmers under PM-KISAN. It is payable in three equal instalments of Rs 2000 each.
This is the first time that farmers in West Bengal will also receive the cash transfer. This, after the West Bengal government approved the direct transfer and provided verified details of eligible farmers in the state in May.
The state had not accepted the scheme initially. During the transfer of the previous instalment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said over 2.3 million farmers of Bengal had applied online to take advantage of this scheme. However, the state government had stopped the verification process.
Non-inclusion of West Bengal farmers is one of the reasons why the Centre has not been able to spend the entire allocated amount.
Some Rs 139,370.15 crore had been allocated to the scheme since February 2019, when the scheme was started. However, the government had been unable to spend Rs 23,727 crore of this amount, according to data submitted in Parliament in the Budget session earlier this year.
Till date, around 100 million farmer families have received a total of Rs 1.16 lakh crore in their bank accounts through PM-KISAN. Of this, Rs 60,000 crore was transferred during the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic period.