The Union government has asked the chief secretaries of all States and Union Territories to complete identification and enumeration of the eligible beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) for facilitating quick distribution of the assured ₹ 6,000 a year to eligible farmers.
Accordingly, small and marginal farmer family has been defined as “a family comprising of husband, wife and minor children (up to 18 years of age) who collectively own cultivable land upto two hectares as per the land records of the concerned State/Union Territory. The existing land-ownership system in the concerned States/UTs will be used for identification of beneficiaries and those whose names appear in land records as on February 1 this year will be eligible for the benefit.
After Union Minister Piyush Goyal made announcement on the PM-KISAN scheme in the interim budget presented in Parliament, the Union Government has sent a detailed communication to Chief Secretaries of all the States to complete identification of beneficiaries for facilitating quick distribution.
Land records
If the landholder farmer family has land parcels spread across different village/revenue records, then land would be pooled for determining the benefit.
“It is of utmost importance that the land records are clear and updated and the State/UT governments are requested to complete updation of land records expeditiously,” the letter said.
Accordingly, the States should prepare database of beneficiary farmers capturing the name, gender, whether belonging to SC/ST, Aadhar number (Aadhar enrolment number in case Aadhar number has not been issued), bank account number, and mobile number of the beneficiaries.
For transfer of first instalment of the benefit for the period of December 1 to March 31, Aadhar number should be collected wherever available and other alternate prescribed documents could be collected for identity verification purpose, the letter said adding Aadhar number should however be compulsorily captured for transfer of subsequent instalments.
The benefit would be transferred to the bank account of beneficiaries through State Notional Account in the pattern similar to the MNREGS.