Over 2 crore SC, ST farmers benefit from PM-KISAN scheme; PMFBY coverage doubles

Over 2.04 crore farmers belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have benefited from the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme, said Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the Lok Sabha.

In October, the 18th instalment was released to 9.58 crore farmers, comprising 1.16 crore SC farmers, 88.34 lakh ST farmers, and 7.54 crore farmers belonging to other categories.

Chouhan mentions that the government has incorporated practices to ensure hassle-free registrations for SC, ST, and OBC communities, which are victims of land ownership documentation anomalies. Over Rs 3.46 lakh crore has so far been disbursed among the farmers in 18 installments since the launching of the scheme.

Technological interventions, such as integration with PFMS, UIDAI, and the Income Tax Department, have been introduced so that timely and transparent transfer of funds is ensured. Mandatory land seeding, Aadhar-based payments, and e-KYC have also been established to streamline the benefits for the farmers.

To redress grievances, the government has come up with a "Help Desk" module on the PM-KISAN Portal. Through this, farmers can directly communicate their issues to the Nodal Officers. Another AI-based Kisan eMitra Chatbot has been launched that provides instant answers to the queries of farmers in 11 languages.

In a related development, the Union government has said the coverage under PMFBY has surged to 1,428.26 lakh in the current year 2023-24, more than double the 617.33 lakh covered in 2019-20.

The area covered under the scheme was 602.35 lakh hectares, whereas in 2019-20, it was 572.04 lakh hectares. PMFBY, which is voluntary for both states and farmers, limits the farmer's share of the premium at two percent during the Kharif season and 1.5 percent for Rabi season crops.

Minister Chouhan added that recent policy decisions taken so far have included eliminating Minimum Export Price for onions, cutting export duties on specific crops, and doing some more. All of them are likely to boost the farm market and allow better selling prices for the farm output.