State govt lax in sharing farmers' details: Nirmala

Launching a scathing attack on the Kumaraswamy-led coalition government, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday charged that it was delaying the process of sharing details of beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme with the Centre.

The central government has announced that the Rs 75,000-crore scheme will benefit 12 crore farmers across India. Under the scheme, Rs 6,000 cash is directly transferred to beneficiary accounts in three instalments annually.

“The central government has transferred Rs 2,000 each to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme. Most states have shared details of eligible farmers. However, Karnataka, West Bengal and Kerala haven’t yet completely shared eligible farmers’ details,” she said at an informal interaction with a cross-section of the society here.

She said, “Of the 72 lakh farmers in Karnataka, between 60 lakh and 62 lakh farmers are eligible under the scheme. The Kumaraswamy government has shared details of just 2 lakh farmers so far. Within days of the scheme being announced, the central government transferred Rs 2,000 which shows the speed of the Narendra Modi government. The Karnataka government is moving at snail’s pace as the Centre is yet to receive eligible farmers’ details. Why isn’t Karnataka government ready to help distressed farmers despite consecutive droughts?”

The UPA government had promised crop loan waiver to the tune of Rs 6 lakh crore. However, it waived only Rs 52,000 crore. The Modi government took one major decision every day in the last four-and-half-years, she said.

Targeting West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, she said Mamata too was posing a problem in the implementation of the scheme.

On the controversial Rafale deal, she said, “Many Congress leaders were defence ministers. AICC president Rahul Gandhi should have learnt defence procedures from them before cooking up stories,” she said.

On One Rank One Pension scheme, she said the NDA government had disbursed Rs 52,000 crore so far and would disburse Rs 8,000 crore every year. The Centre was committed to fulfil the demands of retired defence personnel, she added.

After the interaction concluded, Nirmala faced some embarrassing moments as a member of the audience shouted ‘Pakistan zindabad’.

The organisers, however, claimed that no pro-Pakistan slogan had been raised. Within seconds, many in the crowd raised pro-India slogans.

Policemen at the venue, however, confirmed that pro Pakistan slogans had been raised.