By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MAR 01, 2024: ONE of the largest Direct Benefit Transfer programmes in the world, PM KISAN has crossed a new milestone.  With Prime Minister releasing the 16 th instalment from Yavatmal in Maharashtra the scheme   has benefitted more than 11 crore eligible farmer families with Rs 3 lakh crores disbursed till date.  Of this, Rs 1.75 lakh Crores was transferred to eligible farmers during the COVID period alone, when they needed direct cash benefits the most.

Considering the need for positive supplementary income support for the farmer families in the country and to promote a productive, competitive, diversified, inclusive and sustainable agriculture sector, the Government of India launched an ambitious scheme for farmers' welfare - the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) on 2 nd February 2019.  Under the scheme, the eligible farmer families are provided a benefit of Rs. 6000/- per year in three equal instalments of Rs. 2000/- each, every four months.  The benefit is transferred directly to the bank accounts of eligible beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer mode, using modern digital technology.

90 lakh new beneficiaries added

Recently, as part of the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, undertaken to ensure saturation of Government's welfare schemes across more than 2.60 lakh Gram Panchayats, 90 lakh eligible farmers were added to the PM KISAN Scheme.

In the last five years, the scheme has crossed many milestones and has received accolades from various organizations, including the World Bank, for its sheer vision, scale, and the seamless transfer of funds directly to the accounts of eligible farmers.

A study conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on farmers of Uttar Pradesh indicates that the benefits under the PM-Kisan reached the majority of farmers, and they received the full amount without any leakages. As per the same study, the farmers receiving cash transfers under PM-KISAN were more likely to invest in buying agricultural equipment, seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides.

Technology for transparency

With an objective to make the scheme more efficient, effective, and transparent, continuous improvements in a farmer-centric digital infrastructure have been made to ensure the benefits of the scheme reach all the farmers across the country without any middleman involvement . The PM-KISAN portal has been integrated with the portals of UIDAI, PFMS, NPCI, and the Income Tax department. The States/ UTs and all other stakeholders are on-boarded on the PM-KISAN platform to provide quick services to the farmers.

While farmers can register their grievances on the PM-KISAN portal and take the help of a 24x7 call facility for an effective and timely resolution, Government of India has also developed ‘Kisan e-Mitra' (a voice-based AI Chatbot), which enables farmers to raise queries and get them resolved in their own language in real- time. The Kisan-eMitra is now available in 10 languages i.e., English, Hindi, Odia, Tamil, Bangla, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu and Marathi.

The scheme is a shining example of cooperative federalism as the States register and verify the eligibility of farmers while the Government of India provides 100% funding for the scheme.   The inclusive nature of the scheme is reflected in the fact that at least one out of four beneficiaries is a woman farmer, besides more than 85% of small and marginal farmers being the beneficiaries under the scheme.