Prime Minister Narendra Modi will formally launch the Rs 75,000 crore PM-KISAN scheme at Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh with the transfer of the first installment of Rs 2,000 to about one crore beneficiaries, a senior agriculture ministry official said Thursday.
The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-KISAN) was announced in the interim Budget 2019-20, under which Rs 6,000 will be given in three installments to 12 crore small and marginal farmers holding cultivable land up to 2 hectare.
"The Prime Minister Narendra Modi will formally launch the scheme at a farmers' rally at Gorakhpur on February 24. We expect the PM will push the button for 1 crore plus beneficiaries," the official told PTI.
The data uploaded on the PM-KISAN portal till February 24, will be considered for transfer of the first installment at the launch event, the official said, and added that the second installment will be given from April 1.
Asked if farmers will get the first installment if their names could not get into the initial list of eligible beneficiaries, the official said, "the basic principle is that farmers will not be deprived of the benefit because of inefficiency or bottlenecks of the system."
On collating beneficiaries data, the official said, "the field verification is going on. Different states are moving at a different pace. There are governance and political issues in some states for collating the data."
Asserting that the new scheme will improve the revenue data base in the country, the official said, "farmers will be forced to update their land records to avail the benefit under the scheme. If a person dies or sells the land, all this have to be updated.'
The immediate change that is visible on the ground after the announcement of the scheme, the official said "our revenue machinery is running after the farmers to get the data of exclusion certificate and aadhaar number."
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