NEW DELHI: The Central government on Thursday announced that it will transfer Rs 2,000 as first installment to each of the 8.69 beneficiaries under the PM-KISAN scheme, in the first week of April.
The move is aimed at giving immediate relief to farmers affected by the nationwide lockdown.
“Farmers receive Rs 6,000 annually from PM-KISAN. We will now be giving the first installment of that as a front-loaded matter, so that at the beginning of the year, they will get Rs 2,000,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman said in a press conference on Thursday.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), the Centre transfers an amount of Rs 6,000 per year, in three equal installments, directly into the bank accounts of the farmers, subject to certain exclusion criteria related to higher income status.
The finance minister claimed that the move will immediately benefit 8.69 crore farmers stuck in the nationwide lockdown.
While the move will take care of their immediate cash requirement, to buy basic food, this is not an additional allocation for farmers. It also covers only half of the total farmers in the country.
The Agriculture Census of 2015-16 suggests the country has 14.65 crore operational holdings that carry out agricultural production. This basically means that PM-Kisan scheme is still not available to every farmer in the country. There is no plan yet for what will happen to the rest. Closed mandis and perishing crops and vegetables is another problem that has not been addressed. Mandis, where farmers sell their harvest, has been closed down during the nationwide lockdown. Harvest of several crops, including wheat, mustard, chana and coriander has begun across the country, and farmers are sitting on truckloads of grains and pulses.
“We have harvested our crop. With the mandis closed, where will we store our grain? Stray animals are eating the harvest, and amidst a lockdown, it’s difficult to even protect it. It will help if the government ensures pickup for the crops by mandis. Else, there will be distress-selling,” said Mithilesh Yadav, a wheat farmer from Uttar Pradesh.
The problem of storage is more for fruit and vegetable farmers. In some states like Punjab, harvesting is not yet concluded.