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.

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).

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

(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.

(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.

This information provided in the Lok Sabha session today