PM-Kisan scheme: over 11.2 lakh failed transactions in lockdown period, RTI reveals

Response under RTI query shows that PM-Kisan had over 11.2 lakh failed payments during lockdown period, from March 23 to July 31 as reported by The Wire. Department of Agriculture, corporation and farmer's welfare has acknowledged 44 per cent of these failed transactions have not addressed until late December last year.

Reply to an RTI query filed by Venkatesh Nayak reveals the count of 11,29,401 failed transactions during the pandemic time. Even though the RTI reply didn't give the measure of the amount involved if each transaction ids of Rs. 2000 as it was meant to be, the total amount of failed transaction will add up to more than Rs. 22.58 lakhs.

An earlier RTI response has shown that under PM-Kisan Yojana, 20 lakh illegible persons availed financial assistance of a total of Rs. 1,364 crore from its operational date till July 31, 2020, and more than 55.58 per cent of them belong to the income tax payee category.

"At the peak of COVID-19 pandemic, although a large number of poor PM-Kisan beneficiaries successfully received the funds during the lockdown period, a considerable number of them may not have received their dues. Almost 44 per cent of the transfer failures remained to be sorted out at the time, CPIO (Chief Public Information Officer) sent the dataset," Venkatesh Nayak responded to the RTI reply as reported by The Wire.

PM Kisan programme is operational from 2019 and under this scheme, income support of Rs. 6000 rupees per year in three instalments is given to small and marginal farmer families who are holding a combined land up to 2 hectors. Several categories of farmers are excluded from the scheme like institutional landholders; farmer families in which one or more members is among beneficiaries – former and present holders of constitutional posts; former and present ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs, mayors and chairmen of district panchayat; serving and retired government employees; people receiving over Rs 10,000 as monthly pension; income tax payees and professionals such as doctors, engineers, chartered accountants and architects.