PM Kisan grant going to 3 lakh ‘tax-paying’ farmers in Uttar Pradesh, govt to recover Rs 200 crore

LUCKNOW: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ambitious PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme in December 2018, entailing payment of Rs 6,000 directly to poor and marginal farmers, little would he have thought that the grant would land up in the bank accounts of over 3 lakh farmers in UP who pay income tax.
The fact has come to light a day after UP chief secretary Durga Shankar Mishra on Tuesday sent a letter to all district magistrates to initiate recovery from such unauthorised beneficiaries. Sources said that around Rs 200 crore might have to be recovered from such farmers in the state.
Sources said that the Centre had recently verified bank accounts of 'beneficiary' farmers only to find that as many as 3,15,010 of them in UP had income over and above Rs 2.5 lakh (standard exemption) from non-agricultural sources. Income from agriculture is exempted from income tax.
Sources said that the apparent lackadaisical verification of beneficiaries also resulted in grants being wheeled into the accounts of farmers and their spouses. This number is relatively small though, sources said.
Additional chief secretary (agriculture) Devesh Chaturvedi confirmed that these 'undeserving' beneficiaries were essentially taxpayers. Experts said that this defeated the purpose of the scheme which was aimed to address farmers with low income.
‘Hold e-KYC verification’
The state government will recover the grant from these farmers ‘expeditiously,” affirmed Chaturvedi.
Experts said that an exhaustive filtering mechanism was required to sustain such a scheme which ostensibly aims to help a huge chunk of poor and marginal farmers.
Data from the agriculture department suggests that around 2.5 crore farmers in the state have benefited from the PM Kisan scheme at least once since its launch in 2018. The Centre has been paying the sum in three installments of Rs 2,000 each. The Centre has asked all states to conduct e-KYC verification of farmers by May 31. However, the UP government has managed to cover only 53% of the total farmers who have been found eligible for the sop. The state government has asked farmers to get their details updated online themselves or get it done at common service centres. Mishra has directed officials of the revenue and agriculture departments to hold a weekly review to step up the process.