Why the Centre's PM-KISAN lags states in farmer cash transfer schemes

State schemes such as Telangana's Rythu Bandhu and Odisha's Kalia are working more efficiently than Centre's PM-KISAN

Manjeet Singh, a farmer from Punjab’s Tarn Taran, was clueless about what needs to be done to avail cash under the nationwide cash transfer scheme, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sammaan Yojana (PM-KISAN). His application for enrolment was rejected by the software due to, of all things, his mother tongue. His Aadhaar authentication failed as his records in the bank concerned were in Gurumukhi, but data in PM-KISAN’s centralised system was in English.

This is one of the myriad ways in which applications under the PM-KISAN are being rejected, so much so that the rejection rate on some days is more than the go-through rate, officials said. There are several “technical” and operational reasons why PM-KISAN is unable to reach all beneficiaries.

As a result, PM-KISAN has been able to reach 77 per cent of the intended beneficiaries in Punjab, and only 57 per cent nationwide, for the April-July tranche (second instalment). In comparison, about 80 per cent of farmer/labourer beneficiaries under Odisha’s Kalia scheme, and Telangana’s Rythu Bandhu, have got their legitimate cash instalments by now.

While PM-KISAN promises Rs 6,000 per year in three instalments to each “farmer family”, Rythu Bandhu promises Rs 5,000 per acre per season to each “farm land holder”. Odisha, under Kalia, promises Rs 12,500 per year in a single tranche to every “small and marginal farmer” in the state. All the schemes have some exclusion criteria.

But why exactly is the central scheme is lagging behind similar programmes offered by the states? While all of them fall under the category of cash transfer, the ways in which they are implemented vary, and that makes all the difference.

The kind of data used and the level of “cleanliness” the data gives rise to technical difficulties despite improvement in the quality of information, the approach and direction of implementation, and the capacity to carry out groundwork for putting things in place that prevent any glitches makes states stand apart, and perform better.

States a step ahead of Centre
Scheme	Universe (Million)	Actual beneficiaries (Million)
PM-KISAN (India)*

72.0 40.0 Rythu Bandhu (Telangana) 5.0 4.0 Kaiia (Odisha) 6.4 5.1 *For second instalment (April-July 2019); Source: Ministry of Agriculture, respective state depts of agriculture

States use better data, and more effectively

Using better data is half the job done, say data scientists. States do exactly that. Odisha (Kalia) uses the decadal population Census of 2011, and applies some approximations to arrive at the beneficiary universe.

"The state agriculture department further uses existing data from the paddy procurement database, subsidy repository and food security lists to reconfirm the beneficiaries," Saurab Garg, principal secretary for agriculture in Odisha, told Business Standard.

But in addition to this, the state department took efforts to visit all panchayats (villages) and get application forms filled from all farmers and landless labourers in Odisha, by sending four people at every panchayat.

“We carried out this exercise between January and March, and scrutinised the data at the block-level and district-level committees. We received 12 million applications, of which 6.4 million have been finalised as beneficiaries, and 5.1 million have received money,” said Garg.

This robust system of field inquiry and self-declaration helped Odisha to remove most of the irregularities in data.

Telangana did it differently. It took two years to modernise its land records, invested more public funds into modernisation and digitisation, faster than the Union Government was helping states do it.

Born in 2014, the state generated first-hand data on all landholders in the state, envisioning a state-wide farmer scheme back then. Today, more than 92 per cent of the farmers have digitised Aadhaar-seeded pattadar passbooks (land records).

The state department made sure that all the entries and relevant agricultural and revenue data for all land holders gets filled. With a good degree of land dispute resolutions, the accuracy of data has increased from 75 per cent in the summer of 2018, to more than 90 per cent now, said Vakati Karuna, director of land administration in Telangana, and the person behind the state’s land record modernisation programme.

“We have all land records online, and put transparently on our website. Land parcels where some information is missing is clearly visible on the portal, and helps us fill that gap faster,” she said.

The Centre, on the other hand, used the data from agriculture census, which is carried out every five years. The biggest discrepancy in the agri-census is that it is developed from a survey of a sample. Secondly, it captures those cultivators who do not have land records, who are share-croppers with or without contract, who are just tilling the land.

Though the agriculture census gives the clearest idea of the number of cultivators in the country, experts feel it is not the perfect kind of data to assess beneficiaries at the unit level, due to dearth of records.

Rejection rate reduces, fund flow crashes

PM-KISAN was riddled with the problem of high rejection rates in the first instalment pertaining to the December 2018-March 2019 period.

Rejection happens when data in the central database and the farmers’ application do not match. The application of the eligible beneficiary needs to go through certain steps such as validation, making corrections and authentication in the public funds management system (PFMS), which is the payment gateway for all central funds.

But former agriculture secretary Siraj Hussain told Business Standard that the rejection rate has drastically dropped in the current financial year.

“The rejection rate was 75 per cent lower in the second instalment than in the first. Despite this, the cash flow to beneficiaries is lower in the second than the first,” said Hussain.

While 91 per cent of the beneficiaries got their cash in the first instalment, only 57 per cent got it in the second.

Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh led the rate of rejections at the PFMS level at the time of first instalment, but were able to significantly reduce it at the time of second. Yet, only 30 per cent of beneficiaries in Maharashtra have received the second tranche.

Officials also said that states in which manual Aadhaar seeding is being done have been facing more authentication issues since April 2019.

“You are the beneficiary” vs “Please apply”

The Centre and states differ in the manner in which they communicate with the prospective beneficiary.

States have aggressively made efforts to market the scheme, reach farmers’ doorstep and get them enrolled in the respective scheme. If any discrepancy arose, the state department ensured that it was solved, so that no eligible farmers was left out. In other words, states went to the farmer and told him, “You are the beneficiary in our new cash transfer scheme.”

The central scheme PM-KISAN, on the other hand, requires the beneficiary to come forward to apply for the scheme, with relevant documents attached to her application form.

“Many persons who are counted as farmers in the agriculture census may not want to register themselves as farmers under a certain scheme since they fear losing out on other benefits,” said a government official on the condition of anonymity.

"Unnecessary paperwork drove some farmers away, while absentee landlords would anyway not turn up," he said.

Better the lead time, faster the implementation

Finally, both the states, Telangana and Odisha, spent considerable time in finalising the land records, linking bank accounts and Aadhaar.

“The lead time of two years gave us the necessary window to do all the groundwork, which has been the key reason for faster implementation,” said Karuna.

About 92 per cent of the states’ land parcels are fully accounted for at the moment, and the state expects to reach to 95-97 per cent accountability soon. The remaining, Telangana officials said, are either major disputes or benami properties.

The Centre, on the other hand, announced the scheme in the interim Budget in February 2019, without much concrete information on the number of beneficiaries it intends to cater to.

While the government put the beneficiary universe at 125 million (February 2019), and later expanded it to 145 million (April 2019), the number of farmers registered under the scheme still stands at 72 million (as of September 25, 2019).

Of that, only 40 million (56 per cent) received the second instalment (April-August 2019) while 25 million (35 per cent) have received cash for the third (September - November 2019).

-- Sanjeeb Mukherjee contributed to the story