Modi deviating from poll promise of providing Rs 18K to farmers: Mamata
Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wrote to the farmers stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not lived up to his promise of providing Rs 18,000 to each beneficiary of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme and the sum that they are getting is much less than what was promised before the elections.
In the letter dated May 13, she maintained that the Centre was not releasing the amount citing different reasons and finally whatever a section of Bengal's farmers are getting is the outcome of her continuous fight for their cause.
This comes a day before Modi is scheduled to release the eighth instalment — transfer of more than Rs 19,000 crore to over 9.5 crore beneficiary farmer families — of the financial benefits under the PM-KISAN scheme.
It needs a special mention that the Prime Minister while addressing his poll rallies in Bengal, had assured of releasing the arrear amount of Rs 18,000 to each farmer in the state after the elections. After returning to power for the third consecutive term, Banerjee wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to implement the promises made by him before the Assembly polls, extending benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), including immediate transfer of Rs 18,000 to each of the beneficiaries.
"I would like to further impress that during your recent visit to the state, you gave repeated assurances on releasing the arrear amount of Rs 18,000 to each farmer, but till date, no fund has been received by the state of West Bengal or the farmers," Banerjee had written to the Prime Minister after adding that her government has made all arrangements ready so that "Modi's concerned ministry" can help the farmers get their due benefits without any restriction.
Out of the 21.79 lakh farmers, who had registered for the scheme, 14.19 lakh data have been uploaded on the portal, which were duly verified and of which 9.84 lakh data were ready for PFMS and the state government had appointed state nodal agency (SNA), state nodal officer (SNO), opened two bank accounts viz State National Account and Administrative Account following operational guidelines of the scheme about five months ago only.
Stating that the state-run Krishak Bandhu scheme was introduced in 2018, one year before the PM-KISAN scheme was initiated by the Centre in 2019.
Banerjee also stated in her letter to the farmers that her government's scheme is much better than that of the PM-KISAN as the former provides benefits even to bargadar or sharecroppers just by giving self-declaration and beneficiaries below 60 years also get death benefit assistance of Rs 2 lakh. The annual benefit, which is Rs 6,000 at present, would also go up to Rs 10,000. Under the PM-KISAN scheme, a financial benefit of Rs 6,000 per year is provided to the eligible beneficiary farmer families and it is payable in three equal four-monthly instalments of Rs 2,000 each.
