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The Centre plans to launch a village-level campaign to enroll an additional one crore farmers in Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme over the next 100 days, said Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, on Thursday.
PM-Kisan
The Minister said this during a video conference with the agriculture ministers of States and Union Territories, in which he also urged States to ensure wider coverage of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna (PM-Kisan) and pension schemes that were recently launched for small and marginal farmers.
Currently, there are about 6.92 crore KCC holders, even though there are 14.5 crore operational landholdings, an official statement said. KCC makes farmers eligible for agricultural loan of up to ₹1.6 lakh. Among the major States that have poor KCC penetration are: Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
PMKisan is a Centrally-sponsored income support scheme for farmers which would give them ₹6,000 a year in three equal instalments.
From April, the scheme has been extended to all farmers, irrespective of the size of landholdings. Similarly, the first Cabinet meeting of the new NDA government announced a pension scheme that would give ₹3,000 monthly to small and marginal farmers from the age of 60 if they enrol between 18 and 40 years of age.
PTI adds: Farmers will have to contribute ₹100 per month under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Pension Yojana for the monthly pension, according to the government. The Centre will match the farmers’ contribution to the pension fund to be managed by the LIC, it said.
The Modi 2.0 government in its first cabinet meeting had approved a separate pension scheme for farmers to cover five crore beneficiaries in the first three years, which would cost the exchequer ₹10,774.5 crore per annum.
In the video conference, Tomar urged all the States and Union Territories to roll out the programme at the earliest.
Farmers can also opt to allow the contribution to be made directly from the benefits drawn from the PM-Kisan scheme. There will also be an online grievance redressal system for complete transparency.
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