About the scheme

• Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is a Central Sector Scheme with 100% funding from Government of India.
• Aim : To augment the income of the farmers by providing income support to all landholding farmers’ families across the country.
• The Scheme initially provided income support to all Small and Marginal Farmers’ families across the country, holding cultivable land upto 2 hectares. Its ambit was later expanded w.e.f. 01.06.2019 to cover all farmer families in the country irrespective of the size of their land holdings. 
• Under the Scheme an amount of Rs.6000/- per year is transferred in three 4-monthly installments of Rs.2000/- directly into the bank accounts of the farmers, subject to certain exclusion criteria relating to higher income status.
• Eligibility : All landholder farmer’s families in the country are eligible for the PM-Kisan Scheme subject to the prevalent exclusion criteria. Farmers who do not own any land are not eligible for this scheme.
• Excluded from the scheme
  • Institutional land holders,
  • Farmer families holding constitutional posts,
  • Serving or retired officers and employees of state/central government as well as PSUs and government autonomous bodies.
  • Professionals like doctors, engineers and lawyers as well as retired pensioners with a monthly pension of over Rs 10,000 and those who paid income tax in the last assessment year.
• Identification of beneficiaries : The responsibility of identifying the eligible beneficiary farmers and uploading their data on PM-KISAN portal lies entirely with the state governments.
• There are 11 crore beneficiaries registered under the scheme. 

Why in News?

• According to information provided by the Agriculture Ministry in response to an RTI request from activist Venkatesh Nayak, PM-KISAN payments worth ₹1,364 crore have been wrongly made to more than 20 lakh ineligible beneficiaries and income tax payer farmers.
• Until July 2020, 20.5 lakh people who should have been excluded had wrongly received PM-Kisan payouts. 56% of these undeserving persons belonged to the “income tax payee” category, while the remainder belong to the “ineligible farmers” category. 
• Punjab (23%), Maharashtra (17%) and Assam (14%) account for more than half of the beneficiaries of wrong payments, followed by Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh with 8% each. 

Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pm-kisan-payout-went-to-20-lakh-undeserving-beneficiaries-rti-info/article33549149.ece