The Agriculture Department in Guwahati, Assam is carefully verifying the documents of around 9 lakh ineligible farmers who have taken the benefits worth Rs 182 crore under the Central Government’s PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana.
For this, the Agriculture Department has asked the banks through which the ineligible beneficiaries received the benefits to identify the ineligible beneficiaries.
"Since every account holder gives KYC (Know Your Customer) details while opening a bank account, they (banks) can reach the ineligible beneficiaries who went away with the benefits of the schemes," a source in the Agriculture Department said.
According to Ashish Kumar Bhutani, the Principal Secretary (Agriculture), "Identifying each and every ineligible beneficiary is a difficult job hence we have asked the bankers to help us in this. The data operators had entered the names as well as addresses of the ineligible beneficiaries incorrectly with intention. We hope to find out the ineligible beneficiaries in three months & recover the amount from them."
It is important to mention that the scam took place during the mid-term of the Sarbananda Sonowal government.
The total number of farmers in Assam at that time was nearly 23.33 lakh, as per the figures by the agriculture department. The scam came to light after payment of the first installment of Rs 2,000 each to the beneficiaries. The state government started an inquiry with Jishnu Barua, the then Additional Chief Secretary. The investigation found that as many as 11.72 lakh ineligible farmers had received Rs 238 crore under PM Kisan scheme.
The administration identified 2.58 lakh ineligible beneficiaries and recovered Rs 51.60 crore from them. The information of around 9.14 lakh ineligible beneficiaries remained untraced.
A case is ongoing in the Gauhati High Court in this regard following a PIL filed by a Non-Government Organization. The HC has also asked for the status of the scam from the government.
