PM-Kisan: Centre awards top-performing states and districts

Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar awarded the top-performing states and districts for their exemplary work with respect to the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Scheme (PM-Kisan) Wednesday. The minister distributed the awards during an event in New Delhi organised to celebrate the 2nd-year completion of the scheme. The states and union territories were awarded based on the criteria such as correction of data, addressing farmer grievances and timely physical verification exercise.

Describing the PM-Kisan as a historic scheme, Tomar said as on March 24, 2021, benefits amounting to Rs. 115,638.87 crore have been transferred to more than 10.75 crore beneficiaries since the inception of the scheme. The future generations will remember the initiative as a milestone in the agriculture sector, he added.

Praising the hard work of the farmers, the minister recalled the contribution of the farmers during COVID times. He said regardless of the adversity, the hard work of farmers has the potential to get the country out of any crisis.

Tomar thanked all the state governments who have taken necessary steps to implement the schemes in their state.

Speaking about the sufficient budgetary allocation under the scheme, he requested the state governments to run campaigns for the registration of beneficiaries in their states so that not a single needy farmer remains deprived of the benefits of this scheme.

Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare thanked the state governments for cooperation in the implementation of the PM-Kisan scheme and data collection drive. He said that it was a historical record that in only 18 days of the scheme launch, more than one crore beneficiaries were added to the scheme.

Kailash Chaudhary, MoS, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare; Ministers of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh along with Vivek Agrawal, Joint Secretary and CEO, PM-Kisan with nodal officers from various state governments were present on the occasion.

5 Top Performing States Under PM-Kisan Scheme

Parameter	Category	State	Explanation
Highest percentage of Aadhaar authenticated beneficiaries	Other States	Karnataka	97% Aadhaar authenticated data. More than 90% beneficiaries in Karnataka are being paid benefits via Aadhaar based payment mode.
Good Performance in Physical verification and Grievance Redressal		Maharashtra	Physical Verification Completed – 99% Grievance Redressal – 60%
Fastest Take off		Uttar Pradesh	Nearly 1.53 crore farmers were registered during the period of Dec’18 to Mar’19
Highest percentage of Aadhaar authenticated beneficiaries	NE States & Hilly Terrain	Arunachal Pradesh	Aadhaar Authentication is 98%
Good Performance in Physical Verification and Grievance Redressal		Himachal Pradesh	Himachal Pradesh Physical Verification Completed – 75 % Grievance Redressal – 56%

15 Top Performing Districts Under PM-Kisan

Parameter	Category	District
Aadhaar Authenticated and Farmers Paid (Weighted Average)	Other States	1.Rupnagar (Punjab) 2.Kurukshetra (Haryana) 3.Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh)
	North East & Hilly Areas	1.Lahaul & Spiti (Himachal Pradesh) 2.Udham Singh Nagar (Uttarakhand)
Grievance Redressal	Other States	1.Pune (Maharashtra) 2.Dohad (Gujarat) 3.SPSR Nellore (Andhra Pradesh)
	North East & Hilly Areas	1.Nainital (Uttarakhand) 2.Sirmaur (Himachal Pradesh)
Physical Verification	Other States	1.Ahmednagar (Maharashtra) 2.Anantapur (Andhra Pradesh) 3.Aurangabad (Bihar)
	North East & Hilly Areas	1.Kangra (Himachal Pradesh) 2.Dehradun (Uttarakhand)

What is PM-Kisan Scheme?

The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) scheme was launched on February 24, 2019 with a view to providing income support to all landholding small and marginal farmers’ (SMF) families across India, to enable them to take care of expenses related to agriculture and allied activities as well as domestic needs. The scheme, effective from December 1, 2018, aims to provide a payment of Rs. 6,000 per year for the farmers’ families with cultivable landholding up to two hectares, subject to certain exclusions. The financial benefit of Rs.6,000 is being released by the Central government in three 4-monthly instalments of Rs. 2,000 over the year directly into the bank accounts of the eligible farmers under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode.

The cut-off date for the identification of beneficiaries with regard to their eligibility is February 01, 2019. The entire responsibility of identification of beneficiaries rests with the state and UT governments. An exclusive web-portal www.pmkisan.gov.in has been launched for the scheme. The financial benefits are released to the beneficiaries on the basis of the data of farmers prepared and uploaded by them on the PM-Kisan web-portal. Beneficiaries are entitled to their benefit from the 4-monthly period in which their name is uploaded by the State Nodal Officer (SNO) in the PM-Kisan portal.

The scheme is being implemented with continuous improvements and changes in the shape, modalities and mechanism of the scheme with the progress of its implementation and its performance over time. Due to the overwhelming response from the farming community, the mandate of the scheme was further extended to cover all farmers irrespective of the size of their landholding and subject to the prevailing exclusion criteria. The revised scheme is effective from April 01, 2019.