Financial aid to farmers during Covid crisis: From PM KISAN to Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana- Check schemes that benefited farmers

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has hit the overall economy of the world. India is a nation where the majority of the population is involved in farming and hence making it important to help and aid the farmers of the country amid Covid crisis. 

As per a statement by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, number of farmers have been benefited under major beneficiary-oriented schemes of the department.

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The central government is implementing a number of schemes, both Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored for the benefit of farmers and the agriculture sector as a whole. Beneficiaries are selected by State Governments and therefore, such details are maintained by them.

There is no uniform criterion adopted for the selection of beneficiaries and this may differ from scheme to scheme. However, landholding is taken as the eligibility criterion for most schemes of the Department, as per the statement.

Here are a few of the schemes for the benefit of the farmers:

1. Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN): The scheme aims to supplement the financial needs of all landholding farmers. Under the Scheme, an amount of Rs 6000 per year is released (in three equal instalments of Rs 2000 every four months) by the central government online directly into the bank accounts of the eligible farmers. During Covid period, Rs 84,600 crore was paid to 10.52 crore beneficiaries under the scheme.

2. Kisan Credit Card (KCC): KCC saturation drive was initiated by Department of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmers Welfare (DAC&FW) in mid February, 2020 in collaboration with Department of Financial Services (DFS) with the goal to provide universal access to institutional concessional credit to all farmers including Animal Husbandry, Dairy and Fisheries farmers with special focus on coverage of PM-KISAN beneficiaries. 

Under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (ABA)’ campaign government has set a target of issuing additional 2.5 crore KCCs by the end of year, as an important step in achieving this goal. This will ensure availability of cheap credit to farmers in the time of crisis and injection of nearly 2 lakh crore in rural economy. So far, Banks have issued KCC for 2.18 crore eligible farmers. 2.5 Cr farmers will be covered in due course.

3. Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maan Dhan Yojana (PM-KMY): It is a voluntary and contributory pension scheme for Small and marginal farmers. 114721 farmers covered under the scheme during 2020-21.

4. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY): It is an affordable crop insurance scheme for farmers against all non preventable natural risks. During 2020-21, 608.9 lakh farmer applications were insured under the scheme.

This information was given in a written reply by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.