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Bengal

PM-Kisan: State demands immediate release of benefits to 15L farmers

PM-Kisan: State demands immediate release of benefits to 15L farmers
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Kolkata: The Bengal government has demanded the Centre to immediately release the benefits of 15 lakh farmers from the state under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN).

This comes as the Centre is yet to directly transfer the benefits of the scheme in their bank accounts despite being included under the scheme.

The state Agriculture minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay raised the issue strongly in a four-hour long national-level virtual conference attended by the Union Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar and the Union minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Monday. Mainly agriculture ministers represented their states. Yogi Adityanath was the only Chief Minister to attend the meeting.

Chattopadhyay stated that the names along with applications of 46.02 lakh farmers from the state were uploaded in the dedicated portal to enroll them under the PM-Kisan scheme.

The Centre has sanctioned 38.51 lakh applications. But only 23.77 lakh farmers have received the benefits of the scheme. The remaining 15 lakh are yet to receive the same.

"We have demanded immediate direct transfer of benefit in the bank accounts of the immediate 15 lakh farmers. We, however, did not receive any reply from their end in this regard in the meeting," Chattopadhyay said.

It needs mention that earlier only 7.03 lakh farmers from the state had received the benefit. It was the first time when farmers from Bengal were included in the scheme.

This comes when a farmer under PM-Kisan gets Rs 6000 in three equal installments of Rs 2000 each in a year. While under the Bengal government's Krishak Bandhu scheme, a farmer gets Rs 10,000 in two equal installments.

The state agriculture minister also stated that Bengal is much ahead in digitising agriculture related records including details of farmers and agricultural land. A database containing details of 66 lakh farmers in Bengal has been created and 62 lakh of them have received the first installment of Rs 5,000 each under the Krishak Bandu scheme after its annual financial aid has been increased to Rs 10,000.

Bengal's success of increasing the crop intensity, which was 177 percent in 2011, to 190 per cent in 2018-19 and the planned budget for agriculture sector in the state has increased to Rs 5,860 crore in 2020-21 that was only Rs 180.7 crore in 2010-11. "We have also stated that the average farmer's income in the state has increased by three times," Chattopadhyay said.

He also alleged that representatives of many states were stopped from speaking. "But the case was completely different from the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh as he was allowed to speak as long as he wanted," he said, adding that many BJP led states also demanded a better approach of banks to provide Kisan Credit Cards to more farmers.

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