TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, on the government’s Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi for small and marginal farmers, providing Rs 6,000 per year to be transferred directly to farmers’ bank accounts. Tharoor says, “The whole exercise has turned out to be a damn squib. We’ve seen one good thing that is tax exemption for the middle class. Rs 6000 in income support for farmers boils down to Rs 500 per month. Is that supposed to enable them to live with the honour and dignity?”
Reaching out to a large electorate ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Modi government Friday announced a cash dole for small farmers, a mega pension scheme for the unorganised sector and doubled the threshold income tax exemption limit to Rs 5 lakh. Presenting the interim 2019-20 union budget in Parliament, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said Rs 6,000 per year cash support will be given to small and marginal farmers that will cost the exchequer Rs 75,000 crore annually, in a bid to provide relief to distressed farm sector.
Under the scheme called ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi’, Rs 6,000 will be transferred into bank accounts of farmers holding up to 2 hectares of land in three equal instalments. Goyal said it will benefit 12 crore farmers and will be implemented from this fiscal itself. He said Rs 20,000 crore have been provided for current fiscal and also announced allocation of Rs 75,000 crore for the next fiscal.
