Assam: Potential fraud in PM-KISAN under scanner

NEWDELHI/ASSAM: The Union agriculture ministry has asked the Assam government for a report and a probe into a potential fraud in PM-KISAN, the federal cashtransfer programme for farmers, which allowed non-farmers to get cash as authorities halted further payments, an official said.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal has ordered investigations under the watch of a top state bureaucrat, who will give his report in a month, his office said on Monday.

The possibility of ineligible people posing as farmers heightened after a software that manages the programme found sampling errors of land records not adding up, a second official said.

In all states, barring the Northeast and Jharkhand, farmers need to offer four sets of documents to be eligible for cash. These are converted into data and “triangulated” (verified) through the software, which is designed to reject any claim if the “triangulation” doesn’t match.