NORTH LAKHIMPUR, May 21 - The Agriculture department has identified 8,401 fake beneficiaries of Prime Minister KISAN scheme in Lakhimpur district.
The numbers have emerged following an inquiry by the State Agriculture department in the wake of a scam in the PM KISAN scheme during the lockdown. The bogus beneficiaries include government employees and pensioners have drawn funds with no agriculture land, the inquiry found. However, fake beneficiaries of PM KISAN scheme have so far voluntarily returned their deposits amounting to Rs 76,000 to banks in the district. The Lakhimpur Agriculture department has so far selected 58,325 beneficiaries against the applicants of 66,726 for the PM KISAN scheme in the district.
It may be mentioned that launched in December, 2018, the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is a scheme with 100 per cent funding from the Government of India. The scheme provides an income support of Rs 6,000 per year to all farmer families in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 each every four months, transferred directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries.
The entire responsibility of identification of beneficiaries of farmer families for PM-KISAN rests entirely with the State governments or Union Territories and at this point the scam has taken place at various places of Assam including Lakhimpur district. Similarly, there have also been allegations of demands of Rs 500 from each applicant by concerned agents for enrolment for the PM-KISAN card at various gaon panchayats in Lakhimpur during the time of hardship caused by the ongoing lockdown.
