Over 3 Million Farmers in State Could Miss Out on ₹6,000 Cash Benefit Due to Non-Compliance

Approximately 3.1 million farmers in the state are at risk of being excluded from the annual cash benefit of ₹6,000 provided by the Namo Shetkari Maha Samman Nidhi Yojana (NSMN) scheme due to a variety of reasons, according to state government officials.

Initially announced in March by Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was then the Finance Minister, the NSMN scheme was introduced as a parallel to the PM-Kisan scheme. It aimed to extend its benefits to 11.7 million farmers. Nevertheless, the state's agricultural department has come to the realization that the count of eligible beneficiaries might be limited to 8.6 million farmers.

The data for this scheme has been sourced from the PM-Kisan Yojana of the central government. The funds are ready for distribution, but the state's application is still being developed. As per data from the central scheme, 8.6 million farmers have successfully updated their accounts, leaving 1.1 million farmers ineligible due to either incomplete Aadhaar seeding or land seeding. These two steps are vital for the disbursement of the funds.

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Farmers seeking benefits under the NSMN scheme are required to link their Aadhar numbers with their bank accounts and provide valid land records to verify their eligibility. The introduction of e-KYC ensures that the benefits are directed to the rightful beneficiaries.

Even though 11.7 million farmers applied for the cash benefits initially, 3.1 million have not met the required criteria or completed the seeding process, according to an anonymous official from the agriculture department. The first installment of the NSMN scheme is not anticipated to be released for at least another four weeks.

The state government has allocated ₹4,000 crore for the scheme through supplementary demands approved during the monsoon session. The application for fund disbursement is about 60% complete, and officials anticipate that the first installment will be disbursed within the next three to four weeks. Delays in rolling out the scheme were attributed to the time taken for data procurement through the application programming interface from the central government.

Anoop Kumar, the Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture, stated that a review meeting is scheduled for Monday, with plans to expedite the scheme's rollout as soon as possible.

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