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The Centre has disbursed Rs 12,305 crore so far to beneficiaries under the PM-KISAN programme that aims to boost farmers income by providing them Rs 6,000 per year in three equal instalments.
"Recently, the government has initiated the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme effective from February 1 to enable farmers to take care of expenses related to agriculture and allied activities as well as domestic needs," Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
The scheme provides a payment of Rs 6,000 per year in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 to beneficiaries.
Recently, the Centre decided to extend the benefit of this scheme to all 14.5 crore farmers, irrespective of the size of their landholding, costing Rs 87,217.50 crore annually to the exchequer.
Giving an update on disbursement, Tomar, in a reply to a separate query, said, "Till date, the first installment to 3,29,52,568 beneficiaries and the second installment to 2,85,73,889 beneficiaries have been credited directly to the bank accounts of farmers' families under the PM-KISAN scheme."
The government has disbursed Rs 6,590.51 crore for the first installment and Rs 5,714.77 crore for the second tranche, the data showed.
"PM-KISAN is a continuous and ongoing scheme, in which the financial benefits are transferred to the bank accounts of the identified beneficiaries as and when their correct and verified data is uploaded by the concerned States/UTs on PM-KiSAN web portal," the minister said.
The data uploaded by the States/UTs undergoes multi-level verification and validation by various agencies, including banks, and then the amount is transferred to beneficiaries' accounts.
"In this process several times, the rejected data is returned to the State/UT governments for correction. Though this result in delay in release of benefits to the identified beneficiaries, it is essential so as to ensure that the benefit reaches the correct beneficiary," Tomar said.
The minister informed that the government has decided beneficiaries would be eligible to get the payment commencing from the four-monthly period in which their names are uploaded in portal and also subsequent installments.
