90 Lakh New Farmers Added to PM-KISAN Scheme

New Delhi, Feb 29 (PTI) About 90 lakh new beneficiaries have been added under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme through the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra in the last three-and-a-half-months, according to the agriculture ministry.

Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra (VBSY) launched on November 15, 2023 is the Centre's flagship initiative to raise awareness on its schemes. VBSY aims to achieve beneficiary saturation under government schemes.

"Recently, as part of VBSY, undertaken to ensure saturation of the government's welfare schemes across more than 2.60 lakh gram panchayats, 90 lakh eligible farmers were added to PM-KISAN scheme," the ministry said in a statement.

Under PM-KISAN, launched on February 2, 2019, eligible farmer families are provided a benefit of Rs 6,000 per year in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 every four months.

The benefit is transferred directly to bank accounts of eligible beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer mode, using modern digital technology.

Since the launch, Rs 3 lakh crore has been disbursed, out of which Rs 1.75 lakh crore was transferred to eligible farmers during the Covid-19 pandemic period. Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued the latest 16th installment to more than 11 crore beneficiaries on Wednesday.

Highlighting the benefits of the scheme, the ministry said a study conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Uttar Pradesh indicates that the benefits under the scheme have reached the majority of farmers, and they received the full amount without any leakages.

As per the same study, the farmers receiving cash transfers under PM-KISAN were more likely to invest in buying agricultural equipment, seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides.

To make the scheme more efficient, effective, and transparent, the ministry said continuous improvements in a farmer-centric digital infrastructure have been made to ensure that benefits of the scheme reach all farmers across the country without any involvement of middlemen.

The PM-KISAN portal has been integrated with the portals of UIDAI, PFMS (Public Financial Management System) , National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Income Tax department.

States and Union Territories and all other stakeholders are onboarded on the PM-KISAN platform to provide quick services to farmers.

According to the ministry, farmers can register their grievances on the PM-KISAN portal and take the help of a 24x7 call facility for an effective and timely resolution.

The Centre has also developed ‘Kisan e-Mitra' (a voice-based AI Chatbot), which enables farmers to raise queries and get them resolved in their own language in real-time.

The Kisan-eMitra is now available in 10 languages namely English, Hindi, Odia, Tamil, Bangla, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu and Marathi.