Having achieved 25% of its target, Gujarat is set to become the first state to avail of the Centre’s incentives for creating a Farmers’ Registry. Agriculture Ministry sources said Gujarat officials have informed them that the state will be sending a formal proposal to get the funds under the the Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment 2024-25 in the next few days. According to an Agriculture Ministry official, as of December 5, Gujarat generated Farmer IDs for 17.47 lakh farmers — a quarter of its target of 66.21 lakh farmers. It’s the first state in the country to achieve the 25% target, the official added. A Farmer ID, also known as Kisan Pehchaan Patra, is an Aadhaar-based unique digital identity linked dynamically to a state’s land records bearing information such as demographics, crops sown and ownership details. It will form the core of the Farmers’ Registry, one of the three registries under the AgriStack component of the Centre’s Digital Agriculture Mission for the creation of digital public infrastructure in the farm sector, which got the Union Cabinet’s approval earlier this year. With Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget Speech on July 23, announcing that 6 crore farmers and their land will be brought into the farmer/ land registries in the current fiscal, the Centre earmarked Rs 5,000 crore as incentives for creating the Farmers’ Registry in 2024-25 under the Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment 2024-25. The guidelines were circulated to the states on August 9. According to the guidelines, the funds for creating a State Farmers’ Registry will be available on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis, with states becoming eligible to receive incentives only after achieving at least 25% coverage. The incentives are proportional to each milestone: Rs 500 per farmer after crossing 25% of the generation target; Rs 750 after 50%; Rs 1,250 after 75%; and Rs 1,750 at 100%. Explaining the release of funds under special central assistance, a source said, “For example, if State A has 1 crore farmers, achieving 25% coverage would mean registering 25 lakh farmers with Farmer IDs. At this level of coverage, the state would receive Rs 125 crore (25 lakh x Rs 500) in funding. If 50% of farmers (50 lakh Farmer IDs) are registered, the funding would be Rs 187.5 Crore (25 lakh x Rs 750). At 75% coverage (75 lakh Farmer IDs), the state may receive Rs 312.5 crore (25 lakhx Rs 1,250), and at 100% coverage (1 crore Farmer IDs), the funding would be Rs. 437.5 crore (25 Lakh x Rs 1,750).” “While Gujarat leads the way with 25% of Farmer IDs (of the total Farmers of the State in PM KISAN), other states are also progressing well. Madhya Pradesh has made a significant achievement in a short time, reaching 9%, Maharashtra at 2%, and other states like Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Rajasthan have also initiated the process of generating farmer IDs,” said the official. With the creation of the Farmers’ Registry, a farmer would be able to digitally identify and authenticate himself/herself to access benefits and services, obviating cumbersome paperwork and with little or no need to physically visit various offices or service providers, said a source.
