Eligible Odisha Farmers To Get PM Kisan Yojana Benefits: Union Minister

Bhubaneswar: The Centre has decided to provide the benefits of the PM Kisan Yojana to all eligible farmers of Odisha, said Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar.

The minister, in a reply to a letter by the BJP leader and Union Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, has said he has directed the officials of his ministry to take immediate steps.

In his letter to the Union Agriculture minister, Dharmendra had said with regard to the stoppage in payment of PM-KISAN benefit to the eligible farmers in Odisha, he had written to the Chief Minister on March 1 this year seeking resolution of administrative and non-compliance issues for ensuring payment of PM-KISAN instalments to all eligible farmers of the state.

In response to his letter, the Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment minister had informed him on March 3 that the total disbursement of PM-KISAN instalments to many eligible farmers in Odisha has come down due to delay in the lot opening, transaction failures, non-integration of banks with PFMS, rejection of beneficiaries with discrepancies in Aadhar name and registered farmer name, changes in LGD codes, low level of automation in some banks and non-receipt of payment success information from banks, amongst others.

Stating that the PM-KISAN beneficiary lots are opened to the states before the disbursal of each instalment for making minor modifications, Dharmendra said as the Odisha government has issued the stop payment instructions with respect to records of 14.5 lakh farmers for physical re-verification, only 23 lakh PM-KISAN beneficiaries will get the payment.

Taking this into consideration, Pradhan had requested Tomar to convene a meeting between the officials of the Agriculture ministry and the Odisha government to resolve all payment-related issues and ensure the disbursement of PM-Kisan benefit to the farmers in Odisha.

He also requested to facilitate additional bulk window clearances to the state government to enable them to expeditiously rectify the details of all beneficiaries whose records were put in the ‘stop payment’ mode.