The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare informed Parliament that the instalment-wise details of benefits released to Punjab beneficiaries since inception were as follows: in the first instalment (December 2018 to March 2019) 11.81 lakh beneficiaries received Rs 236.39 crore, which rose to 14.11 lakh in the second instalment (April to July 2019) with Rs 312.85 crore disbursed.The number further increased to 22.21 lakh in the third instalment, with farmers receiving Rs 483.42 crore. Punjab’s all-time high came in the fourth instalment (December 2019 to March 2020) when 23.01 lakh beneficiaries received Rs 466.47 crore.Since then, the numbers have consistently declined. In the fifth instalment (April to July 2020), the figure dropped to 19.01 lakh with Rs 417.89 crore. In the eleventh instalment (April to July 2022), there were 16.97 lakh beneficiaries who received Rs 340.95 crore. Interestingly, in the twelfth instalment (August to November 2022), the number fell to the lowest ever in the state, at just 2,07,564 beneficiaries receiving Rs 41.87 crore.By the nineteenth instalment (December 2024 to March 2025), only 10.58 lakh farmers benefited, receiving Rs 373.04 crore, and in the latest twentieth instalment (April to July 2025), 11.34 lakh farmers received Rs 387.76 crore.“The PM-Kisan scheme is a central sector scheme launched in February 2019 by the Prime Minister to supplement the financial needs of farmers with cultivable landholding. Under the scheme, a financial benefit of Rs 6,000 per year is transferred in three equal instalments into Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts of farmers through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode. To ensure that the benefits are provided only to eligible beneficiaries, land seeding, Aadhaar-based payment and e-KYC have been made mandatory under the scheme,” the reply further stated.It added, “Land seeding was made mandatory during the release of the 12th instalment of the scheme (August 2022 – November 2022), and Aadhaar-based payment was made mandatory from the 13th instalment (December 2022 – March 2023) onwards. E-KYC was made mandatory from the 15th instalment (April 2023 – July 2023). In this process, the total number of beneficiaries who benefited in the scheme in the 12th instalment period was temporarily reduced across the states. This decrease was nominal in the states who proactively undertook suitable measures and completed the above said mandatory requirements.”
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