New Delhi, July 22 (IANS) As many as 11,171 farmers in Delhi received Rs 2.59 crore between December 2024 to March 2025 as the latest instalment under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme, Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday.

Replying to a question by BJP’s South Delhi MP Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Union Minister Chouhan shared data in Lok Sabha showing that between August-November 2019 and March 2025, farmers in Delhi received Rs 48.79 crore under the scheme.

The Minister said that across the nation, 10.06 crore beneficiaries of PM-KISAN were given Rs 23,500.83 crore in the last instalment for the period from December 2024 to March 2025.

Maintaining absolute transparency in registering and verifying beneficiaries, as on July 16, the Central government has disbursed over Rs 3.69 lakh crore to farmers in 19 instalments since inception, said Chouhan.

“A farmer-centric digital infrastructure has ensured that the benefits of the scheme reach all eligible farmers across the country without involvement of any intermediaries,” he said.

The Minister said the PM-KISAN scheme is a central sector scheme launched in February 2019 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to supplement the financial needs of cultivable land-holding farmers.

Under the scheme, a financial benefit of Rs 6,000 per year is transferred in three equal instalments into the Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts of farmers through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode.

In Delhi, the scheme was implemented from August-November 2019, which corresponded to the national scheme’s third instalment. Till March 2025, 19 instalments have been released nationwide, starting December 2018-March 2019.

The Ministry’s data related to Delhi indicated that when the financial assistance was released in the city for the first time in August-November 2019, as many as 11,534 farmers were disbursed Rs 4.72 crore.

The number of beneficiary farmers in the National Capital dipped drastically to 8,302 in August-November 2023, and an amount of Rs 1.97 crore was disbursed under the Central government-supported scheme.

Since then, the number of beneficiaries has been rising steadily with the PM-KISAN’s 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th instalments reaching 10,240, 10,808, 10,829 and 11,171 Delhi farmers between December 2023 and March 2025.

The corresponding funds released for Delhi farmers under 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th instalments between December 2023 and March 2025 stood at Rs 3.22 crore, Rs 2.51 crore, Rs 2.26 crore and Rs 2.59 crore, said the data shared by the Minister.

–IANS

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