Modi govt to give Rs 15,000 crore to farmers under PM KISAN scheme

NEW DELHI: The Modi government at the Centre is set to transfer around Rs 15,000 crore to close to 75 million farmers from April 1 under the PM KISAN scheme, which gives farmers cash benefit of Rs 2000 in three equal instalments.

This will help farmers support their living during the nationwide lockdown, due to which farmers are not able to sell their produce.

“We are preparing list of farmers to be paid the next instalment. We have started sending these lists to their respective states validation. After that we will transfer the money. We are prepared to transfer it from April 1, when the instalment gets due,” said an official.

The money will be of great help to farmers who are struggling to sell their produce during lockdown.

“Timing of crediting this instalment is important. At this point farmers need money only to buy agriculture inputs for planting summer pulses but also to tide over the lockdown period,” the official said.

The government so far has distributed around Rs 54,000 crore benefiting 87.1 million farmers over four equal instalments, starting from December 2019.

“We have received data of 100 million farmers. We are verifying them with states for linking it with their Aadhar number. We are quite hopeful to saturate the list in couple of months,” the official said.

PM KISAN beneficiaries in major states
Number in million, Source: Lok Sabha question