Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar chaired a meeting with Agriculture Ministers of all States/UTs via Video Conference today and discussed the implementation of three key schemes of Government of India namely Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna (PM-Kisan), Pension Scheme for Small and Marginal Farmers and Kisan Credit Card Campaign.Union Agriculture Minister urged all States/UTs to expedite the process of enrolment of all eligible farmer families/ beneficiaries in a time bound manner so that the benefit under PM-KISAN for the period from April to July, 2019 can be transferred directly to their bank accounts.The Minister also informed all States/UTs regarding rolling out of Pension Scheme for Farmers belonging to the age group of 18-40 years. He also requested all States/ UTs to create awareness about the Pension Scheme.Shri Tomar also requested all States to organise village –wise campaign to cover one crore farmers under Kisan Credit Card Scheme within next hundred days.The PM-Kisan Yojna is an income support scheme for farmers. It is a 100% central sector scheme which will give farmers Rs. 6000/- per year in 3 equal instalments. From 01.04.2019, the scheme has been extended to cover all farmers, the total beneficiaries will be 14.5 crores.
During the video conference it was stressed that there should be 100% enlistment of eligible beneficiaries by States/UT’s, timely uploading of corrected data on PM-Kisan portal and establishment of proper redressal Mechanism.The pension scheme for small and marginal farmers will provide a social security net for all such farmers. Under this scheme a minimum fixed pension of Rs 3000 per month will be provided to the eligible small and marginal farmers subject to certain exclusion causes on attaining the age of 60 years. The scheme aims to cover around 5 crore beneficiaries in the first three years. It will be a voluntary and contributory pension scheme with entry age of 18 to 40 years. The beneficiary can opt to become member of the scheme by subscribing to a pension fund. The beneficiary would be required to contribute Rs. 100 per month at median entry age of 29 years. The Central government shall also contribute to the Pension Fund in equal amount. Contribution shall be made to a Pension Fund managed by the LIC which will be responsible for the pension pay out. Under the scheme farmers can also opt to allow contribution to be made directly from the benefits drawn from the PM-KISAN scheme. There will be an online grievance redressal system for complete transparency.The Kisan Credit Card was introduced in 1998, presently there are 6.92 crore live KCCs against 14.5 crore operational landholdings. The recent initiatives for KCC saturation include adding farmers engaged in Animal Husbandry & Fisheries; removal of inspection ledger folio charges and processing fee of loan under KCC; raising limit of collateral fee on existing agriculture loan from l lakh to 1.6 lakhs. DAC & FW on 04.02.2019 advised all Chief Secretaries/Principal Secretaries of State/UT Administration to launch KCC saturation drive. During the proposed saturation drive, bank wise or village wise campaigns will be organised to collect KCC application forms. States like Gujrat, Maharashtra, UP, Chhattisgarh, WB, Bihar, Jharkhand, HP, J&K and NER states have already been identified where KCC penetration was found lagging. A target of 1 crore is to be achieved in the next 100 days.