Modi govt paid over Rs 2,589 crore to ineligible persons under PM-KISAN scheme, reveals RTI

Despite the Modi government’s assurance that Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) funds were not being transferred into the wrong hands, it has been revealed that Rs 2,589.23 crore has been transferred to ineligible farmers since the inception of the scheme in December 2018.

While Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of ineligible farmers, Assam has the highest amount yet to be recovered from these eligible farmers.

As of February 2022, Uttar Pradesh has recorded the highest number of ineligible farmers at 14.9 lakh from whom Rs 98 crore has to be recovered. This is followed, surprisingly, by Assam, which has 13.35 lakh ineligible farmers from whom a whopping Rs 768.3 crore has to be recovered.

This information has come to light in responses to queries sought under the Right to Information Act by rights activist Avinandan Jana. It also shows that the Agriculture department has identified two groups as unacceptable recipients – ineligible farmers and income tax payee farmers. According to him, several of these ineligible farmers were added to the list with the knowledge of the district authorities.

The RTI response states that there are a total of 11.7 crore farmers on the beneficiary list, of which 58.08 lakh are ineligible farmers. Of the total number of ineligible farmers, 24% (13.73 lakh) are income tax payee farmers. From these ineligible income tax payee farmers, an amount of Rs 1,067 crore has to be recovered.

Following Assam and Uttar Pradesh is Tamil Nadu, which has 8.3 lakh ineligible farmers, from whom Rs 85 crore has to be recovered. But, BJP-ruled Karnataka has only 2.4 lakh ineligible farmers but from them, Rs 123 crore has to be recovered.

Even in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, where there are 2.3 lakh ineligible farmers, Rs 191 crore has to be recovered from them.

“Prima facie, this RTI response seems to be a damning indictment of claims that Aadhaar will reduce leakages in welfare schemes. As this RTI response states, Aadhaar linkage is a pre-condition for registering for PM-KISAN benefits. This then raises the question as to how, despite Aadhaar linkage, those paying income tax received PM-KISAN benefits in the first place,” pointed out Nachiket Udupa, member of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan.

Aadhaar linkage didn't stop ineligible persons from claiming benefits that the government is now trying to recover, Udupa added. To the extent that even the former Director-General of UIDAI, Ram Sewak Sharma, has admitted that, although ineligible, even he received benefits under PM-KISAN.

Under the scheme, the responsibility to identify the beneficiaries and upload their correct and verified data on PM-KISAN Portal lies with the respective state government, stated the Agriculture Ministry in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha on February 11, 2022.

PM Kisan exclusion criteria

The PM-KISAN website states that institutional landholders and farmer families, where at least one member is an income tax payer, are ineligible to become a beneficiary under the PM-KISAN scheme.

It has been specified that families with the following members are ineligible: former and present holders of constitutional posts; former and present ministers at the Central and state level, former and present Members of Parliament, Members of Legislative Assemblies and Legislative Councils, former and present Mayors of Municipal Corporations and former and present Chairpersons of District Panchayats; all serving and retired officers and employees of Central and state Governments, Central and state public sector enterprises and autonomous institutions under government as well as regular employees of Local Bodies except multi-tasking staff, Class IV and Group D employees; all pensioners receiving monthly pension of Rs 10,000 or more, excluding multi-tasking staff, Class IV and Group D employees; all persons who paid income tax in the last assessment year; and professionals such as doctors, engineers, chartered accountants and architects registered with professional bodies and carrying out profession by undertaking practices.

Under the scheme, an income support of Rs 6,000 per year would be transferred to all land holding farmer families in three equal installments. A family is defined as husband, wife and minor children for the scheme.

Anomalies in PM-KISAN

Another irregularity of the PM-KISAN beneficiary list is that in states such Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Telangana and West Bengal, the number of income tax payee farmers who have received benefits is higher than the total number of ineligible farmers on the list.

Gujarat has 2.1 lakh IT payee farmers compared to 63,860 ineligible farmers, Andhra Pradesh has 99,690 IT payee farmers, while the total number of ineligible farmers is 33,156. In case of Telangana, it is 1 lakh and 12,899 respectively; in West Bengal, it is 25,500 and 21,077 respectively.

Maharashtra has 3.3 lakh ineligible farmers from whom Rs 151.6 crore has to be recovered. What is surprising is that in case of Maharashtra the amount to be recovered from the 2.6 lakh income tax payee farmers (Rs 222.1 crore) is higher than that of the ineligible farmers.

According to this RTI response, the government should admit that Aadhaar is a failure in curbing corruption. “In fact, those of us in the RTI movement have been saying from day one that Aadhaar is a black box that hides fraud and that the solution to corruption is to increase transparency and hold social audits,” maintained Udupa.

“Based on this RTI response, the government should order a social audit of the PM-KISAN scheme. Merely claiming that there are leakages taking place - without putting into place measures to improve transparency and accountability in the system to prevent these leakages from taking place - make the claims ring hollow,” underscored Udupa.

At the beginning of this year, the PMO stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the tenth installment of financial benefit under PM-KISAN, transferring an amount of over Rs 20,000 crore to more than 10 crore beneficiary farmer families. The government has transferred Rs 1.82 lakh crore to farmers under the scheme since 2018.