Launched in the Interim budget of February 2019, right before the Lok Sabha elections the same year, the Pradhan Mantri Kisaan Sammaan Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is a 100 percent centrally funded scheme that gives minimum income support of 6,000 rupees a year to marginal and small farmer families having combined land holdings/ownership of up to 2 hectares.

The 6,000 rupees is disbursed in three equal installments and is to be directly transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries.

Similarly, with the elections in mind, the Trinamool Congress government launched the Krishak Bandhu scheme on 31 December 2018, as a New Year gift to all farmers. The state-funded, approximately 3,000 crore rupees scheme, gives annual financial assistance of 5,000 rupees per acre to farmer families, disbursed in two installments- during the rabi and kharif seasons.

However, the Krishak Bandhu scheme also had a second part in the form of an assurance model. Under this, if a farmer, aged between 18 and 60, died (due to natural or unnatural causes), then their family was entitled to a one-time grant of two-lakh rupees.

Both aspects of the scheme, the state government said, would be rolled out to 72 lakh farmer families in West Bengal.

With PM KISAN, the states and Union territories, had to assess the farmer families eligible and provide data to the centre. Soon after, the scheme was announced, the West Bengal government refused to roll it out.

In February 2020, however, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, while appealing to the West Bengal government to join the scheme said that almost 10 lakh of the 70 lakh farmers in the state had registered for the PM-KISAN scheme. Since then various BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have harped on how they cannot help the farmers in the state, because Mamata Banerjee would not verify their data.

West Bengal is losing approximately Rs 42,000 crore in central funding by opting out of PM-KISAN.

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Is BJPs Criticism Of TMC Opting Out Of Central Schemes Justified? - The Quint