Interim Budget 2019: Income support scheme leaves farmers unhappy

Having lost three key state elections in the Hindi heartland on account of farmers’ anger over falling prices, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal announced that the government would transfer Rs 6,000 a year into the bank accounts of all eligible small and marginal farmers to meet their investment needs. 
 
Titled PM-KISAN (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi), the support will be provided in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 each in a year.
 
“There is a need for providing structured income support to the poor land-holder farmer families in the country for procuring inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, equipment, labour, etc, and to meet other needs. Such support will help them in avoiding indebtedness as well and falling into clutches of money lenders,” Goyal said while presenting the interim Budget of 2019-20.
 
The scheme is expected to benefit around 86.21 per cent of landholding farmers who own less than two hectares of land as in 2015-16 according to the provisional data of 10th agricultural census. In 2010-11, this number was around 84.97 per cent of total operational holdings, defined as all land used wholly or partly for agricultural production and is operated as one technical unit by one person alone or with others without regard to the title, legal form, size or location. The scheme will not cover tenant or landless farmers or labourers, which number almost 140 million.