Operational Guidelines and Apply - Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan)

“Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN)”

OPERATIONAL GUIDELINES and Apply

1. Scheme

The Government with a view to augment the income of the Small and Marginal farmers has approved a Central Sector Scheme, namely, “Pradhan Mantri KIsan SAmman Nidhi (PM-KISAN)”in the current financial year. The Scheme takes effect from 01.12.2018 for transfer of benefit to eligible beneficiaries during this financial year 2018-19.

2. Objective and Benefits

2.1 With a view to provide income support to all Small and Marginal landholding farmer families having cultivable land, the Government has launched PM-KISAN. The scheme aims to supplement the financial needs of the farmers in procuring various inputs to ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields, commensurate with the anticipated farm income.

2.2 Benefits under the Scheme

Under the scheme, financial benefit as given below will be provided to all Small and Marginal landholder farmer families across the country:-

(a) Landholder Farmer families with total cultivable holding upto 2 hectares shall be provided a benefit of Rs.6000 per annum per family payable in three equal installments, every four months.

(b) The first installment to eligible beneficiaries during this financial year 2018-19 shall be for the period from 01.12.2018 to 31.03.2019.

2.3 Definition

A Small and Marginal landholder farmer family is defined as “a family comprising of husband, wife and minor children who collectively own cultivable land upto 2 hectare as per land records of the concerned State/UT”. The existing land-ownership system will be used for identification of beneficiaries for calculation of benefit.

2.4 Exclusions

2.4.1 The following categories of beneficiaries of higher economic status shall not be eligible for benefit under the scheme:

(a) All Institutional Land holders; and

(b) Farmer families in which one or more of its members belong to following categories :

a) Former and present holders of constitutional posts

b) Former and present Ministers/ State Ministers and former/present Members of Lok Sabha/ Rajya Sabha/ State Legislative Assemblies/ State Legislative Councils,former and present Mayors of Municipal Corporations, former and present Chairpersons of District Panchayats.

c) All serving or retired officers and employees of Central/ State Government Ministries /Offices/Departments and its field units Central or State PSEs and Attached offices

/Autonomous Institutions under Government as well as regular employees of the Local Bodies

(Excluding Multi Tasking Staff / Class IV/Group D employees)

d) All superannuated/retired pensioners whose monthly pension is Rs.10,000/-or more(Excluding Multi Tasking Staff / Class IV/Group D employees) of above category 2.4.1 (c))

e) All Persons who paid Income Tax in last assessment year.

f) Professionals like Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Chartered Accountants, and Architects registered with Professional bodies and carrying out profession by undertaking practices.

2.4.2 For the purpose of exclusion State/UT Government can certify the eligibility of the beneficiary based on self declaration by the beneficiaries. In case beneficiary is not available /does not reside in the village, State/UT Governments may consider certification based on the declaration by other adult member of his/her family. In case of incorrect self declaration, beneficiary shall be liable for recovery of transferred financial benefit and other penal actions as per law.

3. Methodology for calculation of benefit

3.1 As mentioned in Para 2.3 above, the benefit of the scheme would be provided to all Small and Marginal landholder farmer families who collectively own cultivable land upto 2 hectare as per land records of concerned State/UTs, subject to exclusionsas detailed in para 2.4 above.

3.2 If within a landholding farmer family, there are land parcels owned by family members spread across different revenue records in the same or different villages, then in such cases, land will be pooled for determining the benefits under the scheme. In case of joint holding the benefit will be transferred to the bank account of the person within the family with highest quantum of landholding. If the quantum of cultivable land owned by two or more individual family members is same, the benefit will be transferred to the bank account of the elder/eldest, as the case may be, of such members of that farmer family. Few illustrative examples for the eligibility of the benefits can be seen in Annexure-I.

3.3 The cut-off date for determination of eligibility of beneficiaries under the scheme shall be 01.02.2019 and no changes thereafter shall be considered for eligibility of benefit under the scheme for next 5 years.

3.4 Benefit will be allowed in those cases where transfer of ownership of cultivable land takes place on account of succession due to death of the landowner. However, those eligible farmers whose names have been entered in the land record after 01.12.2018 till 01.02.2019 shall be eligible for the benefits from the date of entry of land rights in the land records. In such cases where, transfer of ownership of cultivable land has happened due to any reason which could be purchase, succession, will, gift, etc., between 01.12.2018 and 31.01.2019, the first installment during the financial year (2018-19) shall be proportionate amount from date of transfer till 31.03.2019 with respect to the 4 months period.

3.5 In some of the North Eastern States, the land ownership rights are community based and it might not be possible to assess the quantum of Land holder farmers. In such States an alternate implementation mechanism for eligibility of the farmers will be developed and approved by the Committee of Union Ministers of Ministry of Development of North East Region (DoNER), Ministry of Land Resources, Union Agriculture Minister and concerned State Chief Ministers or their Ministerial representative, based on the proposal by the concerned North Eastern States.

4. Strategy for Implementation

4.1 The States shall prepare database of eligible beneficiary landholder farmer families in the villages capturing the Name, Age, Gender, Category (SC/ST) , Aadhaar Number (in case Aadhaar Number has not been issued then Aadhaar Enrollment Number together with any other prescribed documents for purposes of the identification such as Driving Licence, Voters’ ID Card, NREGA Job Card, or any other identification documents issued by Central/State/UT Governments or their authorities, etc.), Bank Account Number and the Mobile Number of the beneficiaries. Responsibility of identifying the landholder farmer family eligible for benefit under the scheme shall be of the State/UT Government. In case of beneficiaries in States of Assam, Meghalaya, J&K where Aadhaar number has not been issued to most of the citizens, Aadhaar number shall be collected for those beneficiaries where it is available and for others alternate prescribed documents can be collected for identity verification purposes. States/UTs shall ensure that there is no duplication of the payment transferred to eligible families. Speedy reconciliation in case of wrong/incomplete bank details of the beneficiary should be ensured.

4.2 For the purpose of exclusion States have to take a self declaration from the beneficiaries as detailed in par 2.4.2 above. In the said self declaration taken by the States/UT Governments an undertaking should also be included wherein the consent of the beneficiaries should be taken for using the Aadhaar number for verification of his eligibility for the scheme with the concerned agencies. This consent of the beneficiary should be “to agree that the department responsible for implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana in Union Govt or the State Government / Union Territory Administration can use the beneficiary Aadhaar number and other information provided in the declaration to verify the eligibility of the beneficiary for scheme as per extant scheme guidelines with the concerned agencies”.

4.3 The existing land-ownership system in the concerned State/UT will be used for identification of beneficiaries. Accordingly, it is of utmost importance that the land records are clear and updated. Further, State/UT Governments would also expedite the progress of digitization of the land records and linking the same with Aadhaar as well as bank details of the beneficiaries.

4.4 The lists of eligible beneficiaries would be published at the village level. Small and Marginal Farmer families who are eligible but have been excluded should be provide an opportunity to represent their case.

5. Review, Monitoring and Grievance Redressal Mechanism

5.1 There will be stratified review/monitoring mechanism at National, State and District Level. At the National level, the Review Committee will be headed by Cabinet Secretary. The States shall notify the State and District Level Review / Monitoring Committee.

5.2 The States shall also notify State and District Level Grievance Redressal Monitoring Committees for looking into all the grievances related to implementation of the scheme. Any grievances or complaints which are received should be disposed off on merit preferably within two weeks time.

6. Setting up of Project Monitoring Unit (PMU)

6.1 A Project Monitoring Unit (PMU) at Central level will be set up in DAC&FW. This PMU shall be tasked with the responsibility of overall monitoring of the scheme and shall be headed by Chief Executive Officer (CEO). PMU shall also undertake publicity campaign (Information, Education and Communication-IEC).

6.2 Each State/UT Government will designate a Nodal Department for implementation of the scheme and coordinating with Central Government with regard to implementation of Income Support Scheme.

6.3 On the lines of PMU at central level, States/UTs may consider setting up dedicated Project Monitoring Units at State/UT Level. 0.25% of the amount earmarked for the first installment and 0.125% for the subsequent installments can be transferred by GoI to State/UT Government to cover the expenditure on their PMUs, if established and for meeting other related administrative expenses including cost to be incurred for procurement of stationary, field verification, filling of prescribed formats, their certification and its uploading as well as incentive for field functionaries, publicity, etc. States/UTs will furnish the details of the account to which Administrative Charges are credited by the Central Government. The administrative charges payable to the States/UTs will be provided by Government of India- based on the volume of work and the number of beneficiaries.

7. PM Kisan Portal for implementation of the scheme (Beneficiary Details uploading by State)

(a) Beneficiaries under the scheme are to be identified by the respective State and Union Territory. The details of farmers are being maintained by the States/UTs either in electronic form or in manual register. To make integrated platform available in the country to assist in benefit transfer, a platform named PM Kisan Portal available at URL(http://pmkisan.nic.in) shall be launched for uploading the SMF details at a single webportal in a uniform Structure.

(b) The PM Kisan Portal has been conceptualised with the following objectives –

1. To provide verified and single source of truth on SMF details at the portal.

2. Timely assistance to the farmers in farm operation

3. A unified e-platform for transferring of cash benefits into farmers bank account through PFMS integration.

4. Location wise availability of benefited farmers list.

5. Ease of monitoring across the country on fund transaction details.

The following farmer attributes need to be entered in the Portal:

Farmer Attributes: (Essential):

State, District, Sub-District/Block, Village, Farmer Name, Type of Identity –Aadhaar Number and in case Aadhaar not available, Aadhaar enrollment number with any other ID proof like Voter ID etc, Gender, Category, IFSC Code, Bank Account Number.

Farmer Attributes (Optional):

Father name, Address, Mobile Number, Date of Birth/Age, Farm-Size in Hectare, Survey Number, Khasra Number Optional attributes such as Mobile number can be utilized for SMS alerts. Other optional attributes may be used for purpose of future requirement. However, these attributes are not essential for purpose of transfer of money.

These attributes are illustrated on PM KISAN Portal http://pmkisan.gov.in as follows

2. There are 3 ways through which a State/UT can onboard on the PM Kisan Portal:

(a) If a State/UT has village/district wise list of SMF, they may upload the same in a pre-defined format and with the help of local NIC State Unit. Following Farmer Attributes need to be entered:

(b) Some existing data of farmers is already available on the PM Kisan Portal which will be visible on selection of States/Districts/Village. States/UTs which do not have their own list may use this village-wise list of farmers as provided on the portal and edit the same to finalize the SMF list. For this the correction window shall be available at PM Kisan portal for authorized users of District and Block officials.

(c) If States/UTs want to make fresh entry of a farmer, provision is there for registration of these farmers in a defined and standardized format.

3. Databases of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), Soil Health Cards, Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), can also be utilized for this purpose. State/UT wise status of number of farmer records shall be available at http://pmkisan.nic.in.

(d) Records preparation process through PM-KISAN Portal:

1. State admin and District admin need to be identified for creation of login credentials or approval of login credentials in case of self registration by District and Block/Tehsil/Taluka officials.

2. Farmers list as available on the portal shall be available at Block/Tehsil/Taluka level official’s login.

3. Search facility will also be available to get details on Farmers by Name, Aadhaar Number or Mobile Number in case PM KISAN Portal data is being used. Facility to add new Farmers details shall be available, if details are not found in the list.

4. The verified list shall be e-signed by the District level or block/tehsil/taluka level officials as the case may be. The exclusion categoriesspecified in scheme guidelines also need to be taken care before e-signing the verified farmers list.

5. The States Nodal Officer shall submit a district wise e-Signed list of SMF to Program Division of DAC&FW through PM Kisan Portal.

8. Modalities for transfer of benefit

8.1 The benefit shall be transferred by Government of India to the beneficiaries through a mechanism wherein district-wise beneficiaries lists shall be certified and uploaded by the States/UTs and the funds will be electronically transferred via State Notional Account (similar to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS)) to the beneficiaries Aadhaar enabled DBT bank account through Aadhaar Payment Bridge, and in case where the Aadhaar number of the beneficiary is not on the APB, directly into the bank account of the beneficiary provided by the State/UT Government for the first installment for the period up to 31 March, 2019 and thereafter the beneficiary account shall mandatorily have to be verified with Aadhaar and brought on to the Aadhaar Payment Bridge except for States of J&K, Meghalaya and Assam. For ease of implementation the States may consider assigning the job of sponsoring bank for the scheme to the same bank being used by concerned State for MNREGS.

The funds pertaining to income support benefit as well as administrative charges shall be released from Govt. of India to the State designated account/mechanism. Detailed modalities for transfer of funds are as under :

(a) The amount due to the beneficiaries under the scheme, is to be paid directly into their bank account through the mechanism of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). The amount will flow to the account of the beneficiaries, held in destination banks, through the accredited bank of Department and sponsoring bank of the State/UT, using PFMS portal. The destination bank can be a Schedule Bank, Post office, Rural Bank, Cooperative Bank or any other Financial Institution.

(b) The important steps to be taken by State/UT Governments and Union Governments, for timely payment into the beneficiary account are listed below:

A. State/UT Government:

i. State/UT Governments are to identify the beneficiaries and upload the beneficiary details on the web portal of the scheme.

ii. Correctness of beneficiary details is to be ensured by State/UT Governments. Further, speedy reconciliation in case of wrong/incomplete bank details of the beneficiary should be ensured.

iii. For facilitating payment, Fund Transfer Order (FTO,) for the total amount in a batch of beneficiaries, is to be signed by State/UT, on the web portal of the scheme.

iv. State/UT Governments are also required to identify a bank in each State/UT and designate it as sponsoring bank for this scheme. States may consider designating the same bank for use for MNRGES for sponsoring bank for this schemes.

v. The bank to be designated as sponsoring bank, is to have well developed IT systems with the capabilities of integration with web portal of the scheme and Public Financial Management System (PFMS).

vi. Details of sponsoring bank along with IFSC code and bank account number in which funds are to be transferred are to be provided to the Department.

vii. States/UT Governments are to authorise the sponsoring bank to directly transmit the amount received under the scheme to destination banks, having beneficiary account.

viii. The sponsoring bank is to transmit the funds to destination bank soon after the same are received by it.

B. Union Government:

I. The Programme Division in the Department is to issue Sanction Order on the basis of FTOs received from States/UTs.

II. The beneficiary account is to be credited periodically after the issuance of the Sanction Order.

III. Beneficiary would be intimated about credit of amount to his account by Short Messaging Service (SMS).

IV. The confirmation of credit to the beneficiary account would be received back by the Department on the day next to the day of credit to the beneficiary account.

V. Failed/unsuccessful transactions would be reported back by the banking system to the Department, on the day next to the day of reporting of the successful transactions, along with amount involved.

VI. Details of failed transactions would be made available to States/UTs for further verification of beneficiary details and reprocessing.

8.2 The beneficiary lists would be displayed at Panchayats to ensure greater transparency and information. Further, States/UTs would notify the sanction of benefit to the beneficiary through system generated SMS. In cases of complaints/grievances emanating subsequent to publication of beneficiary list, the same should be addressed and remedial action taken expeditiously. Efforts should be undertaken by State/UT Governments to ensure checking for around 5% of the beneficiary for the eligibility during the year.

9. Timelines

9.1 For transfer of benefits of the first installment (for the period from 01.12.2018 to 31.03.2019), States/UTs are expected to take immediate steps for finalization of eligible beneficiaries’ lists and uploading of the same on the PM Kisan portal by 25th February, 2019, so that the benefits may be transferred into the accounts of beneficiaries thereafter.

10. Validity of the list of beneficiaries

10.1 This list of beneficiaries by States/UTs for transfer of first installment shall be valid for one year. However, States/UTs can upload names of eligible beneficiaries who have been identified subsequently. States/UTs should also implement a mechanism to ensure revision of the name of the beneficiary in case of mutation /changes in the land record after uploading list on the portal for updation of the eligible beneficiary details for such lands as per above para 3.4.

Annexure-I

(Para 3.2, Page 2)

Different Scenarios for computation of benefit to eligible beneficiaries

(Amount in Rs.)