PANJIM: Nearly 3,000 farmers in the State who had obtained Krishi Kisan Cards are now in a rude shock as they have been asked to refund the money since they have been found ineligible due to income tax and improper records of land rights.
As many as 47,000 farmers across the State have been issued cards under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana and were receiving Rs 6,000 per year distributed in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 each every four months into their Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts.
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Farmers are up in arms over directions issued by the Directorate of Agriculture asking them to refund Rs 6,000 that was received by them earlier under the scheme.
While the farmers pointed out that they received this amount in three instalments and are now being asked to pay the entire amount in one go, they criticised the decision and pointed out that they are facing numerous financial hardships and if they have to refund this amount, they will suffer further losses.
The farmers also questioned why this was not clarified at the time they were handed over the money or checked before the money was sent to them so that an alternate means of providing them with the funds could have been explored.
They have urged Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to intervene until then they have resolved not to refund the money.
The farmers referred to the notice they received from Director of Agriculture Nevil Alphonso.
When contacted, Alphonso said that about 3,000 farmers from Goa were found ineligible for the scheme. Of these 1,000 farmers were ineligible due to income-tax and another 2,000 were found ineligible as their names were not matching with the Records of Rights.
“When the scheme was introduced by Centre in February 2019, one of the conditions was that the beneficiary has to own/possess the land in his/her name. We had informed them that Goan farmers will face hurdles due to land records as most of the lands are inherited. But Government of India officials told us to submit the applications and farmers claimed the amount,” Alphonso said.
He added that few years back they asked farmers to link their Aadhaar Cards to their bank accounts. It was here the GoI officials checked their details and found that names of some of the beneficiaries were not tallying with the records of rights and others had paid income-tax and stopped the instalments thus making farmers ineligible for the scheme.
According to Alphonso, some beneficiaries have received four instalments while, others have received three, two or one instalment depending upon their registration.
Alphonso also clarified that there is no time-limit to refund the money received by farmers, while the states have been asked to seek reimbursement from the ineligible beneficiaries.
Lakhs of farmers across the country have been found ineligible for the scheme, according to him.
According to the government of India, an amount of more than Rs 4352.49 crore which is two per cent of the total amount transferred to all the beneficiaries has been reported to have been transferred to ineligible beneficiaries. He said advisory has been issued to the States to seek refund from ineligible beneficiaries.
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana was aimed at providing financial assistance to land holding farmer families to enable them to meet their expenses related to agriculture and allied activities as well as domestic needs.
