7,924 farmers use fake docus for govt scheme benefit

Kanpur: In Etawah, 7,924 ineligible farmers were found taking benefit of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana by submitting fake documents. After an investigation, the revenue and agriculture departments have started action against these farmers.
Agriculture director RN Singh said that a total of 2,79,461 farmers in the district are beneficiaries of this scheme. As per the norms, the taxpaying farmers are not eligible for the scheme. "The investigation revealed that out of these, 7,924 farmers were receiving benefits despite being taxpayers. So far, a total of Rs 30,11,12,000 were disbursed to these farmers at the rate of Rs 6,000 per year. We have now initiated the process to recover this amount," said Singh further.
Before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, this scheme was initiated to provide benefits to the farmers based on their self-declared affidavits. Many ineligible farmers took advantage of the scheme by submitting false affidavits. The discrepancy was revealed when online verification was conducted using Aadhaar cards.
Among the ineligible beneficiaries were govt pensioners, education assistants, and multiple members of the same family. In some cases, both husband and wife were receiving the benefits simultaneously, and some minor children were also found collecting money from the scheme.
A joint team from the revenue and agriculture departments has started the process to recover the money from these ineligible farmers. Notices are being sent to those who are not returning the money voluntarily, and strict action has been warned post-verification. TNN