NEW DELHI: Government has written to states to ensure eligible tribals with land rights (patta) under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) also get the income support benefit of Rs 6,000 per annum under PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, on par with landholder farmers under the same scheme.
With the ministry of tribal affairs (MoTA) and agriculture monitoring closely, over the past three weeks around three lakh tribals and other traditional forest dwellers holding land lease rights under FRA have been linked to PM-Kisan.
There are over 23.4 lakh individual land rights holders under FRA as of Wednesday on the records of the ministry of tribal affairs.
The letter sent to states stated that the ministry of tribal affairs and the ministry of agriculture – both led by minister Arjun Munda – have decided to cover all FRA beneficiaries holding individual land rights with PM-Kisan.
According to officials, agriculture ministry had through a notification in 2019 extended the PM Kisan benefits to scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers with land ‘pattas’. However, there was no separate database available to show as to how many rights holders under FRA were benefiting from PM-Kisan and how many were unable to get the benefit due to lack of documents or because the land records may not have been updated on ground.
“Now that gap is being filled and states have also been asked to take measures to help correct errors in the documents of genuine eligible beneficiaries,” an official said.
The drive to link FRA rights holding farmers to PM-Kisan first started in the last week of Dec 2023 as part of the newly-launched flagship PM-Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM JANMAN) scheme to register people from particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) for various welfare schemes. Data for the last 25 days show that over 26,700 PVTGs have been linked to PM-Kisan; over 37,000 PM Jan Dhan Yojana accounts have been opened; around 50,000 caste certificates have been made and new FRA pattas given to over 12,000.
MoTA has asked states to update the records of FRA rights holders in a prescribed format and provide the same to the ministry to enable monitoring of the linkage with PM-Kisan.
With the ministry of tribal affairs (MoTA) and agriculture monitoring closely, over the past three weeks around three lakh tribals and other traditional forest dwellers holding land lease rights under FRA have been linked to PM-Kisan.
There are over 23.4 lakh individual land rights holders under FRA as of Wednesday on the records of the ministry of tribal affairs.
The letter sent to states stated that the ministry of tribal affairs and the ministry of agriculture – both led by minister Arjun Munda – have decided to cover all FRA beneficiaries holding individual land rights with PM-Kisan.
According to officials, agriculture ministry had through a notification in 2019 extended the PM Kisan benefits to scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers with land ‘pattas’. However, there was no separate database available to show as to how many rights holders under FRA were benefiting from PM-Kisan and how many were unable to get the benefit due to lack of documents or because the land records may not have been updated on ground.
“Now that gap is being filled and states have also been asked to take measures to help correct errors in the documents of genuine eligible beneficiaries,” an official said.
The drive to link FRA rights holding farmers to PM-Kisan first started in the last week of Dec 2023 as part of the newly-launched flagship PM-Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM JANMAN) scheme to register people from particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) for various welfare schemes. Data for the last 25 days show that over 26,700 PVTGs have been linked to PM-Kisan; over 37,000 PM Jan Dhan Yojana accounts have been opened; around 50,000 caste certificates have been made and new FRA pattas given to over 12,000.
MoTA has asked states to update the records of FRA rights holders in a prescribed format and provide the same to the ministry to enable monitoring of the linkage with PM-Kisan.
