The biggest announcement from the interim Budget 2019-20 is the Rs 75,000-crore PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Program, which will provide Rs 6,000 annually to farmers owning land under 2 hectares.

The income support will be transferred directly to farmers’ accounts in three installments and the entire cost of Rs 75,000 crore for FY20 will be borne by the central government, said Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday.

Farmers will get this income support from December 2018 and Rs 20,000 crore has been budgeted for FY19, said Goyal.

CNBC TV18’s Archana Shukla spoke to Ashok Dalwai, additional secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, to understand the fine print. Here are the excerpts from the interview:

Q: How did the govt arrive at Rs 6,000 / year and why give it in installments of Rs 2,000? Most farmers, I spoke to, say that installment portion has killed the essence of income support as they end up with a small amount. How do you view this?

A: We should look at the assured income support as a first step towards direct benefits being transferred to farmers. It is a policy shift where the government recognized the need for income support for farmers. Installments were decided so that farmers receive an input support during the cropping season. Some farmers do Kharif crops, some Rabi and some even do summer crops. So the income support is spread out to cover major cropping seasons. Also, no other subsidy or farmer related schemes are compromised for this. This is an add-on for farmer welfare.

As for the amount of Rs 6,000, I agree the farmers expected more, but this is a beginning. The guidelines will be subjected to revisions and amendments in future. It is a learning for everyone.

Q: How do we reach out to these 12 crore small landholding farmers since we do not have digitized land records in all states?

A: Yes, that is a challenge but there are multiple land data sources that the government will be using. States like Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra have moved forward on digital land records, so sourcing records will be easy in such states. Additionally, we have 11.8 crore soil health cards being given to farmers so that data can also be used. There are other initiatives like how the state of UP has from this year started transferring input subsidy on seeds through direct benefit transfer (DBT). All these multiple sets of databases will be merged and it will cover a majority of the beneficiary farmers. The remaining can slowly be built from here on. Like I said, this is the first step.

Q: Why target only landowners, what about landless farmers and sharecroppers?

A: Data on farmers, like I said, is the biggest problem. Farmers database is missing and particularly those of landless farmers is even difficult to pin-point. Hence, as a start the government has started with landowner farmers. May be when the guidelines are out and some amendments are sought it can be changed, but I can’t say that for certain.

But the scheme is targeted only for small and marginal farmers (up to 2 hectares of land) and hence the support will go only to those in need. Scheme will not be lost to big farmers.

First Published:Feb 1, 2019 3:49 PM IST