New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) The Centre has disbursed more than Rs 3.7 lakh crore directly into the bank accounts of over 11 crore farmer families in the country under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) Yojana so far, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to disburse the 21st instalment of the scheme on November 19, according to an official statement issued on Friday.

The Central Sector Scheme launched on February 24, 2019, provides annual financial assistance of Rs 6000 per eligible farmer family. It stands out as one of the largest Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) initiatives globally, underscoring its monumental impact on facilitating financial support directly to the beneficiaries. With a commitment to inclusivity, it dedicates over 25 per cent of its benefits to women beneficiaries.

The scheme leverages technological and process advancements so that the maximum number of beneficiaries can benefit without any hassle. A farmer-centric digital infrastructure ensures widespread accessibility, ensuring that eligible farmers across the country can seamlessly avail the scheme’s benefits.

A farmer-centric digital infrastructure has ensured the benefits of the scheme reach all the farmers across the country without any involvement of middlemen. The scheme’s effectiveness is further bolstered by the utilisation of the Aadhaar and Aadhaar-based payment ecosystem, ensuring secure and efficient transactions, the statement explained.

To strengthen its core, the scheme has gone through many technological interventions. Farmers are getting help in every village in the country. Technology is reaching the farmers’ doorstep. The PM-KISAN Mobile App has been launched to provide direct services to the beneficiaries. Further, the use of the Facial Authentication feature via Aadhaar for eKYC verification of the farmers, by which a farmer can complete his and other fellow farmers’ eKYC via facial authentication just by sitting in his or her room.

Further, for more information, farmers can visit the dedicated portal pmkisan.gov.in. Under the “Farmers Corner” section, those receiving benefits from PM KISAN can easily check their status using the new “Know Your Status” feature. The portal also offers a quick and easy self-registration process for farmers. To ensure accessibility, registrations can also be done at nearby Common Service Centres (CSC), and farmers can also open Aadhaar-based bank accounts at their doorstep with the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), the statement said.

Given the significance of the PM Kisan Scheme, the Grievance Redressal system has been provided on the PM Kisan portal and the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS). Farmers can raise their concerns directly on the PM-KISAN portal for quick and timely information.

Further, to facilitate the grievances in real-time, the Kisan-eMitra chatbot has also been made available to the farmers. It addresses the technological and language barriers and facilitates farmers to address their issues in their own language. This chatbot is powered by Large Language technology covering 11 major languages, including Hindi, English, Tamil, Bengali, Odia, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu, Marathi, and Kannada.

The Government of India has also undertaken various village-level special Saturation campaigns from time to time to identify, verify and include all the cultivable land-owning farmers under the PM KISAN Scheme.

The Agriculture Ministry has also launched a new initiative to create a Farmer Registry. This well-organised database will eliminate the need for farmers to go through cumbersome processes to access social welfare benefits, the statement added.

–IANS

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