Good news for farmers who have not yet registered for Pradhan mantri kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana. Now the local postman will help these farmers with the registration or enrollment process.
For the very first time, the Goa government has joined hands with India Posts to get 11,000 farmers enrolled in PM- Kisan scheme, Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar said.
Kavlekar, who is also the Agriculture Minister of Goa said a total of 11,000 farmers in the state who could not enroll so far for PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, are being reached to their doorstep through the Postman. The local postman, whom we generally used to see bringing mail/letters to our doorstep so far will come to fill in the PM-kisan application form for the 11,000 farmers in the state who are eligible for this scheme according to the department records.
He added, "There are total 38,000 Krishi cardholders in Goa, of which 21,000 are eligible for PM-Kisan scheme. Last year (2019), the Agriculture department has conducted two drives where 10,000 farmers out of eligible 21,000 were enrolled for the scheme. There was a question as to how to approach the remaining 11,000 farmers. With this question, we approached the India posts who in turn reverted with a positive response and said that their postman would go door to door & get the forms filled”.
This is the first such exercise in the country wherein postman will be utilized to benefit the farmers.
The Agriculture Minister said we will make more such plans so that Farmers in Goa could benefit from agricultural schemes & they are not left behind because of lack of connectivity or any other reason. We will simplify other farm schemes in the coming days so that farmers are benefited.
Dr Vinod Kumar, Post-Master General said that 255 post offices spread all across Goa and over 300 employees of India Post are involved in this mega campaign.
He said, "Over the past ten days, what started as a trial run, we have been able to collect 5000 filled forms & the joint exercise is a great success from our point of view. For the farmers who do not have Savings account in Banks, postman or local post office opens a zero balance savings account in the India Post Payments Bank by using the Aadhaar number".
Director of Agriculture, Nevil Alphonso said that the government employees, current & past elected representatives, well-off farmers are not eligible to avail benefits under this scheme. He said PM Kisan scheme where the farmers directly get direct benefit transfer of Rs 2,000 in three installments every year, is only for the economically weaker farmers.
