MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court issued notice to the Union government on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition seeking to extend the benefits of 'Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-KISAN)' to all farmers, including sharecroppers and tenant farmers.
A division bench of Justices R Subramanian and L Victoria Gowri was hearing a litigation filed by Swamimalai Sundara Vimal Nathan, secretary of the Tamil Nadu Cauvery Farmers' Protection Association seeking to extend the PM-KISAN scheme and to revise the monetary benefits in the existing scheme from Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000 per annum.
He submitted that to provide income support to all landholding farmers with cultivable land, the Union government implemented the PM-KISAN and Rs 6,000 per year is released for the beneficiaries. However, these grants are provided to farmers who own less than five acres of land. Tenant farmers and leaseholder farmers who own less than five acres of land are excluded from this scheme.
The tenant farmers are mostly peasants; small and marginal farmers from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Most Backward Communities and farm labourers, who are not benefited under the PM-KISAN scheme. Further, he said the scheme was introduced about six years ago and the quantum has not been revised.
During the six years, the input costs and cultivation costs in agriculture and land lease have been hiked more than 3x. The farmers are facing additional expenses and the cost of cultivation has also exceeded. The court adjourned the case for further hearing.