Fewer than 9,000 farmers in Meghalaya were recipients of the eighth instalment of the central government’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme, the lowest figure in the North East and second-lowest nationwide.
Yesterday more than Rs 20,000 crore was released by the Centre for 9.5 crore farmers across the country. This works out to an average of around Rs 2,000 per farmer (West Bengal farmers received Rs 4,000 for two instalments). Under the scheme Rs 6,000 is transferred in three equal instalments to eligible farmer families in a year.
A list of beneficiaries for the current instalment by state and Union Territory under the scheme was published online. According to the data, only 8,967 farmers in Meghalaya received a direct benefit transfer instalment. This was lower than every other state and territory listed other than Goa (8,584).
Meghalaya’s figure was also lower than any other North East state (apart from Sikkim, which was absent from the list) by a long way. Assam, the biggest state in the region, saw more than 12 lakh farmers benefit. But even those states comparable in size with Meghalaya saw greater numbers of farmers receive the cash transfer. The figures were 85,662 in Mizoram, 91,811 in Arunachal Pradesh, 1.74 lakh in Nagaland, 2.08 lakh in Tripura and 2.82 lakh in Manipur.
According to PM-KISAN guidelines, state governments are required to send “correct and verified data of farmers”, which the state nodal officers authenticate and upload to the scheme’s database.
Last year the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president, Ernest Mawrie, claimed that farmers were finding it difficult to register with the state government because officials were not supportive. Agriculture Minister Banteidor Lyngdoh rubbished this allegation, saying that nearly 1 lakh farmers in Meghalaya had benefited from the scheme.
The Rs 6,000 per annum in aid has been criticised for being too low an amount to truly help farmers but, in these uncertain and worrying times brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, any assistance would have been welcomed by the lakhs of farmers who are missing out in Meghalaya.
