BHUBANESWAR: ACCUSING the Odisha Government of blocking names of about 13 lakh farmers eligible to get financial assistance under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) Yojana, BJP MPs from the State have urged the Centre to conduct a probe into irregularities in the implementation of the scheme.
A delegation of BJP MPs met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday and submitted a memorandum alleging that the State Government is deliberately creating hurdles in direct benefit transfer of assistance under PM Kisan scheme in Odisha. The BJP lawmakers said 37,00,578 farmers have registered their names under the scheme out of which, 36,70,489 received the first phase of assistance of Rs 2,000 under PM-Kisan. It was found that only 20,01,292 farmers received a net sum of Rs 400.26 crore in the sixth instalment, the memorandum said.
The Parliamentarians said the number of beneficiaries under the Central scheme is reduced for reasons best known to the State Government.While 36,70,489 beneficiaries received the first instalment, the number came down to 31,58, 589 during the release of the second instalment. The number of beneficiaries further reduced to 23,97,723 during the disbursement of third instalment.The fourth phase of assistance could reach 20,76,894 beneficiaries while 20,03,185 farmers got the fifth instalment under this DBT scheme.
An examination of this disconcerting trend of decreasing coverage of beneficiaries under PM-Kisan in Odisha reveals that 12.93 lakh beneficiaries have been deprived of the assistance because the Odisha Government has not cleared their names without any justification, the BJP MPs said.
They further said that the Odisha government on November, 30, 201 issued a circular stating that all small and marginal farmer beneficiaries identified under the KALIA scheme had been registered under PM Kisan and they would be paid Rs 6,000 from the Central scheme and the remaining Rs 4,000 in two installments under KALIA scheme.
“We are distressed and alarmed to note that till this day there is no integration of data pertaining to the beneficiary list of the KALIA scheme with the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana portal,” they said.
Seeking personal intervention of Tomar in the matter, the delegation requested the Union Minister to instruct the officials concerned to institute a probe by a Central agency to look into the alleged ‘blunders’ committed by the State Government in the implementation of the scheme.