Disbursal of funds to ineligible farmers under PM-KISAN scheme

On allocation of funds to ineligible persons under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Yojana, the Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare was asked in Rajya Sabha whether the Center has given more than 20 lakh farmers and ineligible farmers paying income tax in other states other than Bihar, has been provided the benefit of, while the eligible farmers have been deprived of this benefit. Answering this question, the Minister said that no such wrong transaction has been reported by the Bihar State Government and it is the responsibility of the State Government.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

RAJYA SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-1302

ANSWERED ON-12.02.2021

Disbursal of funds to ineligible farmers under PM-KISAN scheme

1302 . Shri Akhilesh Prasad Singh

Shri Mallikarjun Kharge

Shri Sanjay Singh

(a) whether several fraudulent cases have been reported in various States including Bihar where the Centre has paid ? 1,364 crores to more than 20 lakh ineligible farmers and income tax payee farmers, while many other deserving ones have been left out under PM-KISAN scheme; (b) if so, details thereof and reasons therefor; (c) the steps taken by Government to identify and punish the defaulters who were involved in this scam; and (d) the steps taken to recover the funds transferred to undeserving accounts and transfer it back to the correct beneficiaries and prevent such instances in future?

ANSWER

MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

(SHRI NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR)

(a) & (b): No instances of wrongful transactions have been reported by the State Government of Bihar. The structure of PM-KISAN Scheme inherently comprises of mechanism for exclusion of errors on the basis of continuous verification and validation of data of beneficiaries by various authorities. However, during the verification process, it was found that an amount of Rs. 2326.88 crore was transferred to 32,91,152 ineligible beneficiaries including income tax payees. A few instances have also been reported from States where the credentials of block/district level officials have been misused to approve the applications of ineligible beneficiaries.

(c): As selection/identification of beneficiaries is the responsibility of the State Government alone, the respective State Governments have taken required corrective and punitive action against those who were involved in this wrongdoing. The State of Karnataka has informed that 2,03,819 wrong registrations have been identified by the State and FIR lodged accordingly. Tamil Nadu has informed that nearly 6 lakh registrations have been identified as ineligible due to wrongful activity and from these Rs. 158.57 crore has been recovered till now, 16 FIRs have been lodged against the culprits and more than 100 arrests have taken place. Gujarat has informed that wrong cases under the PM-KISAN Scheme have been found in 2 districts of Gujarat and FIR filed accordingly. In Gujarat, 55 suspected user IDs have been deactivated.

(d): The following special measures have been taken by the Government of India to ensure that the funds are not being misused and the Scheme is properly implemented in order to benefit genuine farmers:

(i) Standard Operation Guidelines have been issued and circulated to the States for recovering money from ineligible beneficiaries including of Income Tax Payees.

(ii) Standard Operational Guidelines for Physical verification of PM-KISAN beneficiaries have been circulated to the State Governments and,

(iii) Caution Advisory has been issued to the States to adopt measures during the registration and verification of farmers under the PM-KISAN Scheme.

(iv) States/ UTs have been instructed to carry out Social audit of every Gram Panchayat.

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