Kisan dole to be given by Mar. 1

The Centre is in a hurry to disburse the first instalment of the PM Kisan (Kisan Samman Nidhi) scheme before the election schedule is announced.

Under the scheme, small and marginal farmers with less than five acres of cultivable land will be given `6,000 per year. The Centre wants to transfer the first instalment of `2,000 by March 1.

Guidelines to identify the beneficiaries have been sent to state governments and the list of beneficiaries must be submitted by February 25. Several state governments say two weeks is not enough time to identify the beneficiaries.

The West Bengal government has announced that it will not participate in the scheme and Congressruled states are not showing much interest in identifying the beneficiaries.

The Election Commission is likely to announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections in the first week of March.

If the BJP-led NDA government can start doling out the first instalment to farmers across the country, the BJP leadership feels it will have a big impact on voters.

Should the data by state governments — particularly those not ruled by the BJP or its allies — not be sent in time, the Central government has decided to take the help of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in assessing the data. NIC has the data of beneficiaries of various schemes of the Centre.

The Centre estimates that the number of beneficiaries under PM Kisan will be around 12 crore. The Union agriculture ministry has distributed soil health cards to 10 crore farmers.

The Centre feels this data will help identify small and marginal farmers. Neither NIC nor Union agriculture department has verified data of farmers.