Lok Sabha Question No. 25 (STARRED), answered on 2019-11-19
Subject: Pradhan MantriKisan Samman  Nidhi
Ministry: AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
Asked by: Nand Kumar Singh Chauhan, Raghu Ramakrishna Raju Kanumuru

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, COOPERATION & FARMERS WELFARE

## LOK  SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 25

TO BE ANSWERED ON THE   19 TH  NOVEMBER, 2019

## PRADHAN MANTRI KISAN SAMMAN NIDHI

- *25.       SHRI NAND KUMAR SINGH CHAUHAN: SHRI KANUMURU RAGHU RAMA KRISHANA RAJU:

Will the Minister of AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE कृ ष एवं कसान कयाण मंी be pleased to state:

- (a) the details including the benefits, norms and conditions of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi being implemented by the Government for providing financial assistance to farmers;
- (b) the rate of interest at which loans to farmers are provided by the Government along with the terms, conditions and modalities for providing the loans;
- (c) the details of the benefits through the National Food Security Mission; and
- (d) the extent to which the farmers have benefited through modernisation of agriculture?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

कृ ष एवं कसान कयाण मंी

(SHRI NARENDRA  SINGH TOMAR)

- (a) to (d): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.

## STATEMENT  REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (a)  TO  (d)  OF  LOK  SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 25  DUE FOR REPLY ON 19 TH  NOVEMBER, 2019.

(a): The  Government  has  started  a  new  Central  Sector  Scheme,  namely,  the  Pradhan Mantri  Kisan  Samman  Nidhi  (PM-KISAN)  with  a  view  to  augment  the  income  of  the landholding  farmers'  families  across  the  country  to  enable  them  to  take  care  of  expenses related to agriculture and allied activities as well as domestic needs. Under the Scheme an amount  of  Rs.6000/-  per  year  is  transferred  in  three  4-monthly  installments  of  Rs.2000/directly into the bank accounts of the farmers. Farmers falling within the following exclusion criteria relating to higher income status are not eligible for the benefit under the Scheme:

- (A) All Institutional Land holders; and
- (B) Farmer families in which one or more of its members belong to following categories :
- i) Former and present holders of constitutional posts.
- ii) Former and present Ministers/ State Ministers and former/present  Members of Lok  Sabha/  Rajya  Sabha/  State  Legislative  Assemblies/  State  Legislative Councils,former  and  present  Mayors  of  Municipal  Corporations,  former  and present Chairpersons of District Panchayats.
- iii) All  serving  or  retired  officers  and  employees  of  Central/  State  Government Ministries  /Offices/Departments  and  its  field  units  Central  or  State  PSEs  and Attached offices /Autonomous Institutions under Government as well as regular employees of the Local Bodies (Excluding Multi Tasking Staff / Class IV/Group D employees).
- iv) All  superannuated/retired pensioners whose monthly pension is Rs.10,000/-or more (Excluding Multi Tasking Staff / Class IV/Group D employees).
- v) All Persons who paid Income Tax in last assessment year.
- vi) Professionals  like  Doctors,  Engineers,  Lawyers,  Chartered  Accountants,  and Architects  registered  with  Professional  bodies  and  carrying  out  profession  by undertaking practices.

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The  Scheme  is  effective  from  1.12.2018.  The  cut-off  date  for  identification  of beneficiaries with regard to their eligibility is 1.2.2019. The entire responsibility of identification of beneficiaries rests with the State / UT Governments. An exclusive web-portal www.pmkisan.gov.in  has been launched for the Scheme. The financial benefits are released to the beneficiaries on the basis of the data of farmers prepared and uploaded by the State  / UT  Governments  on  the  PM-Kisan  web-portal.  For  enrollment,  the  farmer  is  required  to approach  the  local  patwari  /  revenue  officer  /  Nodal  Officer  (PM-Kisan)  nominated  by  the State Government. The Common Service Centres (CSCs) have also been authorized to do registration of the farmers for the Scheme upon payment of fees. Farmers can also do their self-registration through the Farmers Corner in the portal. Farmers can also themselves edit their names in PM-Kisan database as per their Aadhaar database / card  as well as know the status of their payment through the Farmers Corner in the portal.

(b): Under the Interest Subvention Scheme (ISS) farmers can avail short term crop loans upto Rs.3.00 lakh at an interest rate of 7% per annum for one year. Additional 3% subvention is also given to the farmers for prompt and timely repayment of loans.  The benefits of ISS have also been extended to farmers in allied activities like Animal Husbandry and Fisheries upto Rs.2.00 lakh within the overall limit of Rs.3.00 lakh for existing KCC holders and issue of new KCC for Animal Husbandry and Fisheries farmers with provision of benefit of Interest Subvention & Prompt Repayment Incentive (IS&PRI) for loan amount upto Rs.2.00 lakh per annum.  Interest subvention of 2% and prompt repayment incentive of 3% on restructured crop  loans  is  also  given  to  farmers  affected  by  severe  natural  calamities  for  a  maximum period of 5 years on the basis of report of Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) for grant of NDRF assistance and Sub-Committee of National Executive Committee (SC-NEC).

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Eligibility  for  short  term  crop  loans:  Farmers  who  are  owner  cultivators  -    both individual /joint borrowers, tenant farmers, oral lessees and share croppers, Self Help Groups or Joint Liability Groups of farmers including tenant farmers, share croppers etc. are eligible for short term loans upto 3 lakhs. The short term limit is arrived by taking into account the scale of finance for the crop as decided by District level technical committee multiplied by extent  of  area  cultivated  +10%  of  limit  towards  post  harvest  /household/consumption requirements  +  20%  of  limit  towards  repairs  and  maintenance  expenses  of  farm  assets  + crop insurance and or accident insurance including health insurance and asset insurance. The  limit  for  second  and  subsequent  years  is  arrived  by  taking  first  year  limit  for  crop cultivation purpose arrived at plus 10% of the limit towards cost escalation/ increase in scale of finance for every successive year for the tenure of KCC i.e. 5 years. For cultivating more than one crop in a year, the credit limit is fixed as mentioned above depending upon the crop cultivated as per proposed cropping pattern for the first year plus an additional 10% of the limit  towards cost escalation/ increase in scale of finance for every successive year for the concerned crops.

(c):            Due  to  various  interventions  under  the  National  Food  Security  Mission  (NFSM), country has achieved bumper production of rice, wheat, pulses and nutri-cum-coarse cereals, during  2017-18,  at  the  level  of  112.76  million  tonnes,  99.87  million  tonnes,  25.41  million tonnes  and  46.97  million  tonnes  respectively.  The  total  foodgrains  production  achieved during  2017-18  is  285.01  million  tonnes.  As  per  4th  Advance  Estimates  the  production  of rice,  wheat,  pulses and nutri-cum-coarse cereals, during 2018-19 is 116.42 million tonnes, 102.19 million tonnes, 23.40 million tonnes and 42.95 million tonnes respectively and total foodgrains production achieved during 2018-19 is 284.95 million tonnes.

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(d): Various  modern  technological  initiatives  and  interventions,  some  of  which  are enumerated below, have immensely benefitted the agriculture and farmers in the country:

(i) The  National  e-Governance  Plan  in  Agriculture  (NeGPA)  was  launched  to  achieve rapid development in India through use of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) for timely access to agriculture related information for the farmers.

(ii)      Development  of  Kisan  Suvidha  mobile  application  to  facilitate  dissemination  of information  to  farmers  on  the  critical  parameters  viz.,  Weather;  Market  Prices;  Plant Protection; input Dealers (Seed, Pesticide, Fertilizer) Farm Machinery; Soil Health Card; Cold Storages  &  Godowns,  Veterinary  Centres  and  Diagnostic  Labs.  With  market  information, farmers  are  better  informed  about  markets  to  sell  produce,  prevailing  market  prices  and quantity demanded in the market. Thus, they can make informed decisions to sell produce at the right price and right time.

(iii) The  Indian  Council  of  Agriculture  Research  (ICAR)  has  compiled  more  than  100 mobile apps developed by ICAR, State Agricultural Universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras in the  areas  of  crops,  horticulture,  veterinary,  dairy,  poultry,  fisheries,  natural  resources management  and  integrated  subjects,  which  offer  valuable  information  to  the  farmers, including  package  of  practices,  market  prices  of  various  commodities,  weather  related information, advisory services, etc.

(iv) Development  of  mKishan  Portal  (www.mkisan.gov.in)  for  sending  advisories  on various crop related matter to the registered farmers through SMSs.

(v)  The  National  Agriculture  Market  scheme  (e-NAM)  has  been  launched  with  a  view  to facilitate farmers with remunerative prices for their produce through a system of competitive and transparent bidding system.

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(vi) Implementation of Per Drop  More  Crop  component  of  Pradhan  Mantri  Krishi Sinchayee  Yojana  which  mainly  focuses  on  water  use  efficiently  at  farm  level  through precision/micro  irrigation  technologies  viz.,  Drip  and  Sprinkler  irrigation.  Micro  irrigation technology  not  only  help  in  water  saving  but  also  in  reducing  fertilizer  usage,  labour expenses, and other inputs costs besides sustaining soil health.

(vii) Implementation  of  Agricultural  Marketing  Infrastructure,  sub-scheme  of  Integrated Scheme of Agricultural Marketing, in order to improve/create scientific storage capacity for storing farm produce, processed farm produce and to reduce post-harvest storage loss.

(viii) Introduction of Soil Health Card Scheme to assist State Governments in providing Soil Health Cards to all farmers across the country once in a cycle of 2 years Soil Health Card provides information to the farmers on nutrient status of their soil along with recommendations  on  appropriate  dosage  of  nutrients  to  be  applied  for  improving  crop productivity and soil fertility.

(ix) Use  of space  technology for various programmes/areas  such  as  Forecasting Agricultural  Output  using  Space,  Agro-meteorology  and  Land-based  Observations  project, Coordinated programme on Horticulture Assessment and Management using geo-informatics project, National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System, Rice-fallow Area Mapping and Intensification, geo tagging of infrastructure and assets created under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana and Crop Insurance.

(x) Using  machine  learning  process  alongwith  different  computer  algorithm  for  crop classification and area estimation. The Government has set up 713 Krishi Vigyan Kendras and 684 Agricultural Technology Management Agencies at district level for dissemination of technologies among farm community. In addition, farmers are provided   information through

Focused Publicity Campaigns, Kisan Call Centres, Agri-Clinics and Agri-Business Centres of entrepreneurs, Agri Fairs and exhibitions, Kisan SMS Portal, etc.

- (xi) Under  Sub-Mission  on  Agricultural  Mechanization,  during  the  period  from  2014-19, 49033  trainees  have  been  trained,  69053  demonstration  conducted  &  1075194  machines have been distributed on subsidy. In order to increase the availability of machines to farmers on rental basis, 8466 Custom Hiring Centres, 223 Hi-tech hubs 6841 Farm Machinery Banks have  been  established.  A  Multi  lingual  Mobile  App  'CHC-  Farm  Machinery'  has  been launched which encompasses a fair and transparent rental process while focusing on quality, dependability and timely delivery of the services to the farmers.

(xii) Development and availability of quality seeds has been increased from 380.30 lakhs Qtls. to 431.01 lakhs Qtls during 2016-17 to 2019-20. More than 1100 new seed varieties, which include climate resilient varieties, have been released and notified during 2014-2019 out of which 35 are Bio-fortified.

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