Narendra Singh Tomar: 10% of funds to ineligible PM-Kisan beneficiaries recovered

“During the verification process, if it was found that an amount of Rs 2,326.88 crore was transferred to 40,48,049 ineligible beneficiaries, including income tax payees…” Tomar said.

“The Union government has issued a Standard Operation Guideline to identify such undeserving beneficiaries and recover the amount from them,” he wrote.

According to the government data, recoveries have been made in 18 states and UTs.

Among the 18 states, Tamil Nadu recovered the highest amount (Rs 158.57 crore) out of the Rs 321.31 crore disbursed to the ineligible beneficiaries in the state. It is followed by Maharashtra (Rs 57 crore recovered out of Rs 299 crore) and Gujarat (Rs 6.30 crore recovered out of Rs 201 crore), shows government data.

No recoveries of such amounts were reported from 17 states and UTs where Rs 180 crore were disbursed to ineligible beneficiaries.

Among the states which are yet to make any recoveries, the highest amount — Rs 171.47 crore — been disbursed to 1.78 lakh ineligible beneficiaries in Uttar Pradesh, followed by Odisha (Rs 4.68 crore to 8,790 ineligible beneficiaries), the data shows.

In terms of the number of ineligible beneficiaries, Tamil Nadu topped with 6.9 lakh such cases followed by Assam (5.8 lakh), Punjab (4.6 lakh), Maharashtra (3.5 lakh) and Gujarat (2.1 lakh).

Under PM-Kisan, an amount of Rs 6,000 per year in three quarterly installments of Rs 2,000 is provided to eligible farmer families.

Overall, an amount of Rs 1.15 lakh crore has been disbursed to 10.74 crore beneficiaries under PM-Kisan till January 22, 2021, shows the data.

“The eligible beneficiaries are not deprived of the benefits of PM-KISAN as it is a continuous and ongoing Scheme, and as and when data of the eligible beneficiaries are received from States, the requisite amount is transferred to the account of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer,” Tomar said.