60,000 ineligible beneficiaries have been pocketing Rs 6,000 meant for farmers in Kerala

The tardy process in Kerala with regard to recovery of the money from the ineligible accounts comes close on the heels of the state finance department finding that 1,458 state government employees have been pocketing various welfare pensions meant for the weakest section of society.

According to data provided at a meeting of the SLBC earlier this week, the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi in Kerala has 60,687 ineligible beneficiaries, and the amount to be refunded from them is Rs 36.40 crore. However, only Rs 13.59 crore could be recovered so far from 22,661 ineligible persons.

Government documents show that the central government had first told the state in early 2022 to weed out ineligible beneficiaries and recover the amount already paid to the accounts of such persons. At that time, the state had only 31,416 ineligible beneficiaries while 37.2 lakh farmers in Kerala were included in the scheme.

However, the number of ineligible beneficiaries has nearly doubled to 60,687 as of November 2024 while the number of eligible beneficiaries in Kerala has come down – data on the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi portal shows that, as on November 30, Kerala has only 28.1 lakh eligible beneficiaries.

The state’s agriculture department has been tasked to identify the ineligible beneficiaries and the central government has issued a standard operating procedure to recover the amount from the ineligible, government sources said.

“We are in the process of identifying the ineligible farmers and removing them from the data. Many ineligible persons are refusing to refund the amount credited into their accounts,” one official said.

Krishi Bhavans (panchayat level agricultural offices) have to examine the list of beneficiaries and weed out ineligible beneficiaries.

“In some places, local politicians or panchayat members, who have enrolled the ineligible, are also delaying the recovery of the funds. We are still in the process of cleaning the list, but it is a slow process due to various factors. Respective banks have also been frequently intimated about ineligible accounts,” the official said.

When the scheme was launched in 2019, the target was to cover the maximum number of people.

“But we don’t know how the number of ineligible (beneficiaries) has grown over the years despite screening to find ineligible had begun in 2022 itself,” the official said.

Meanwhile, an official with the SLBC said the banking sector can initiate refund or recovery process only on the intimation from the agriculture department.

“We have no provision to take a suo motu action. When we get intimation from the agriculture department, we hold the balance in the account (restriction) and there is an automatic process to pull out the amount to be refunded,’’ the official said, adding that as an alternative, the government should initiate the recovery process.

The ineligible beneficiaries in Kerala continue to benefit from the Kisan Samman Nidhi at a time the state’s dependence on agriculture for livelihood is the lowest in the country. A recent study conducted by NABARD, as part of doubling the farmer’s income agenda, had found that only 18 per cent of households in Kerala are agricultural households, whereas the figure at the national level is 57 per cent. This figure for Andhra Pradesh is 53 percent, Assam is 67 percent, Madhya Pradesh 64 percent, Jharkhand 69 percent, Karnataka 55 percent, Gujarat 54 percent and Tamil Nadu 57 percent.

In Kerala and Goa, 82 percent of households were predominantly engaged in non-agricultural activities to earn their livelihoods.