Telangana makes errors in PM-Kisan scheme, finds Central audit

Hyderabad: The State Government, which champions the cause of farmers and ensures the welfare of the agriculture community, got a rap by the Centre over the PM-Kisan Scheme rolled out in Telangana.

The "Performance Audit Report on PM-Kisan Scheme in Telangana State" by the Central Audit Agency has revealed inconsistencies and mismanagement in the implementation of the scheme in Telangana.

In a startling revelation, the report found that money under direct benefit scheme was transferred into the bank accounts of farmers of a non-existent village in Karimnagar district under the PM Kisan scheme. The audit agency pulled up the Telangana State Agriculture department for this discrepancy. Under the PM Kisan scheme, a farmer is given financial assistance of Rs 6,000 every year.

As per the cluster-wise mapping of Karimnagar district, Cherlapur village in Ganneruvaram mandal is a submerged village and does not exist. However, on verification of the PM Kisan beneficiaries' data, it was observed that 94 beneficiaries were registered under the scheme in Cherlapur village and received 687 installments amounting to Rs 13.74 lakh.

According to the audit agency, approval of the ineligible beneficiaries by the Agriculture Department indicates the negligence of the department in approving the beneficiaries. The state department should have followed instructions scrupulously for approval of the self-registered beneficiaries from time to time, it said. The Agriculture department is a nodal agency for the enforcement of the scheme in Telangana.

Not just this, even the Government employees and pensioners who were not eligible got benefitted from the scheme. Review of the records of the districts revealed that the scheme benefits were paid to the Government employees/ their spouses, and pensioners in nine cases who were declared ineligible. It is said that these beneficiaries registered their names online and were approved by the Agriculture department. They were paid 26 installments amounting to Rs 0.52 lakh". The audit report noticed that these cases are still active and the members continue to receive the scheme benefits.

Officials said that delay in approving Self Registered farmers by the Agriculture department has also resulted in many farmers not being able to avail the benefit. The report noted that as of October 2021, 1,88,370 farmers had registered through online mode for enrolment for the scheme. Out of these, 88,225 applications had been approved and 28,401 applications rejected by the Department. However, 71,743 applications were still pending for approval resulting in delay in the transfer of benefits to the eligible farmers. The audit report also verified the sampled beneficiary data of the PM-Kisan Scheme with the Rythu Bima claim data for three policy years - 2018, 2019, and 2020. The audit noticed that "the details of the deceased farmers were not deleted from the database before uploading it into the PM Kisan portal."

Failure to delete the names of deceased farmers resulted in crediting Rs 161.34 lakh into ineligible accounts. In some cases, the scheme benefits were paid to the persons having non-agriculture land.

They had received nine installments amounting to Rs 0.18 lakh. The report also said that in 342 cases, one account number was registered against more than one beneficiary. These beneficiaries have received 858 installments amounting to Rs 17.16 lakh.