Around 5 lakh pretend farmers from Punjab exploited PM KISAN Scheme for private use, Centre to crack down quickly

As per a reply to RTI filed by transparency activist Venkatesh Nayak, the state of Punjab has the very best variety of ineligible farmers enrolled below the PM-KISAN scheme. As per the reply by the federal government, Punjab has the very best, 4.74 lakh farmers, who’re ineligible for the scheme however are benefiting from it. The Union Government misplaced 323.85 crore rupees because of ineligible farmers from Punjab getting hundreds of rupees immediately of their financial institution accounts below the scheme. Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sammann Nidhi was launched by the Modi authorities in 2019 to extend farmer’s earnings and to ship the promise of doubling farmers’ earnings by 2022. Under the scheme, greater than 14 crore farmers of the nation are paid 6,000 rupees yearly, immediately of their financial institution accounts.Among the states with the very best variety of ineligible beneficiaries, Punjab is adopted by Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, the place numerous ineligible farmers are benefiting below the scheme. However, given the very fact Punjab has the bottom population- round 3 crore- amongst these states, thus, the bottom variety of farmers, the state topping the chart exhibits the dimensions of corruption.The Amarinder Singh authorities enrolled numerous ineligible farmers below the scheme as a result of the Modi authorities trusted the state companies for the enrollment function. As per the RTI reply, a complete of 20.48 lakh ineligible farmers obtained cash below the PM-KISAN scheme, and this price the union exchequer 1,364 crore rupees.As per the reply, round 19.85 per cent and one out of each 5 farmers receiving the advantages of the scheme is definitely ineligible. A lot of folks from Punjab who’re ‘Income Tax Payee’ are receiving the advantages of the PM-KISAN scheme regardless of being ineligible. People with an earnings of greater than 5 lakh yearly have lined as much as obtain 6,000 rupees per thirty days within the state of Punjab. The Union Government mentioned that it’s going to recuperate the cash from all ineligible beneficiaries within the coming months. The farmers from the state of Punjab and Haryana profit most from the enter and output subsidies offered by the Union Government however the Punjab authorities continues to be enrolling numerous ineligible farmers, and, extra importantly, even the individuals who earn in lakhs are able to get enrolled. The Union Government subsidises agricultural on enter entrance (seed subsidy, fertiliser subsidy, subsidised credit score, and energy subsidy) in addition to output entrance (MSP, funding in Agricultural advertising and so forth). The majority of those subsidies go to Punjab and Haryana. Around 80 per cent of the Union Government’s complete procurement consists of Wheat (37 per cent) and Rice (43 per cent), and round 70 per cent of the whole wheat and rice procurement is finished from Punjab and Haryana solely as a result of these states have a complicated APMC community. In the final 5 many years, the farmers of Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh obtained billions of {dollars} from the Union Government within the type of subsidies.Punjab and Haryana began rising paddy regardless of the very fact the crop is extra suited to Eastern India (it wants quite a lot of water) as a result of the union and state governments have been giving numerous sorts of subsidies. Groundwater was exploited extra as a result of energy was free, seeds have been bought given the subsidy, fertilisers have been bought to develop the crops as a result of they have been closely subsidised, and later the Union Government was able to buy rice produced in these states at a subsidised value. So, the manufacturing of paddy which ought to have risen in Eastern UP, Bihar, and West Bengal, given the acceptable situations, was being produced extra in Punjab, due to subsidies by the Union Government and discriminatory procurement practices by the Food Corporation of India. Read extra: How Punjab grew at the price of Bihar due to successive Congress governments’ step-motherly remedy in direction of BiharAs of FY 20, the Union Government spends round 3 lakh crore rupees of the taxpayer’s cash on Agricultural subsidies (enter+output), the vast majority of which matches to Punjab and Haryana. This cash, or part of this cash, ought to have gone to poor states like Bihar for the betterment of the agrarian sectors, however wealthy states like Punjab are certainly rising at the price of Bihar. The state authorities and numerous corrupt farmers of Punjab are colluding to squeeze the Union Government.