Model scheme for farmers, but no time to implement it

In a major announcement for farmers, the central government has launched the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PMKSNY) in the interim budget. Under this scheme, financial assistance of Rs 6,000 will be given to farmers every year. This assistance will be transferred directly to the farmer’s bank account under direct benefit transfer (DBT). The scheme will benefit all farmers having land of less than two hectares.

The target of this scheme is to double the income of the farmers of the country by 2022. About 12 crore farmers of the country will be benefited from PMKSNY. This scheme is considered as an alternative to the loan waivers. Though many have been criticising the new scheme, including MS Swaminathan, renowned for his leading role in India’s Green Revolution, PMKSNY is being seen as the model in Telangana and Odisha where the amount has already been deposited in farmers’ accounts.

At a time when crop yield is getting worse due to environmental imbalance and farmers are facing tremendous losses, the scheme will prove to be a boon. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, more than two lakh farmers have committed suicide in the last 13 years. The growth rate has also been high in the same period. The biggest cause of suicides by farmers is loss of crop and increase in debt to moneylenders.

According to Bureau data, the rate of suicides by farmers is the highest in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The question arises as to how many times farmers had to deal with losses in a sector once called profitable. How did the children of farmers, who feed the country, end up going to sleep hungry? Why did farmers dependent on farming begin to commit suicide?

In fact, after Independence, agriculture was given a great amount of attention by policy-makers, but gradually the increasing influence of industrialisation started causing this sector to be neglected. The storm of globalisation has now destroyed it. The sector has been neglected not just by the centre, but also by the state governments. In almost all elections, the interests of farmers continue to be talked about, but after coming to power, all promises are forgotten. As a result, both the farming sector and the individual farmer’s condition have worsened. From time to time, a declaration of loan waiver is announced by the Centre and state governments, but it only increases the burden on the treasury.

In such a situation, PMKSNY is being considered to be beneficial for the farmers provided it is implemented immediately. This seems to very difficult. Under this scheme, the annual benefit of Rs 6,000 is to be given in three instalments. For this, states will have to make their farmers’ database and give it to the Centre. This is a very time-consuming task. Lok Sabha elections are close, so the government is committed to putting the first installment of Rs 2,000 into each eligible farmer’s account right this month. However, implementing this plan is very different going by the process of reimbursement given to LPG customers in their bank accounts. It will be necessary to get computerised data of land ownership of farmers, their bank account numbers and Aadhaar numbers together so that eligible farmers can be identified. There are just two states and three Union territories in the country that have fully computerised their land records. While four states are in a position to complete this process, the remaining states have to work a lot in this direction and it does not seem that they will be able to do anything before notification of the election.

Experts believe that even if work is done on a war footing in these states, it is difficult to get it all done before six months. One major problem in implementing the scheme correctly is also the transfer of land related matters, where there is a change in land inherited, gifted land or changing ownership due to sale. This problem is being reported in villages spread across more than half of the country. The condition of geo-mapping is even worse. Statistics show that only 10 percent of the country’s villages have completed this work. In tribal areas, there are more difficult situations where land has been occupied for years but there is nothing in revenue records. Similarly, cooperatives on a piece of land will also become a big problem in which the beneficiary will be hard to identify. According to statistics, cooperative owned land in the country is approximately 20 percent of total agricultural land. It is not clear how they will benefit. Apart from this, there are about 1,400 crore farmers in the country who cultivate land by sharing land. They do not seem to get any benefit in any respect.

There can be no doubt about the government’s intentions from this plan. They want to give some relief to farmers by giving cash benefits before the election. They feel that loan waiver schemes are old and unsuccessful. Time is very short, so they want to approach the general elections by disbursing at least the first tranche. But the bottleneck arising is the shortage of time. Executing such a big scheme — without any prior preparation — before the election is a Herculean task. Yet the government is very much willing to implement it because it does not seem to have any other way to convince the already agitated farmers.

The agriculture secretary has sent request letters to all the states that they should start urgent work according to the government’s desire. A budget outlay of ded for 2019-20 for this work, and Rs 20,000 crore from December to March of the 2018-19 fiscal to be given to farmers as the first instalment. Even before that, the central government had planned to give fertiliser subsidy directly to farmers, but till now it is being run only on a pilot basis. If this scheme had been implemented, then the government would have no problems in identifying the farmers who have to receive Rs 6,000 in their accounts.

For decades, voices have been raised that those who cultivate the ground get neither the benefit of price relaxation on seeds or insecticides nor insurance in the event of natural disasters. But no government has ever made any attempt to count them. As a result, a large section of the population engaged in farming has always remained deprived of benefits given to farmers on paper. Additionally, there is a huge section of people working as farm labourers, who are not even identified as farmers.

—Charkha Features