Thousands of farmers have been denied benefits under Rythu Bharosa scheme due to denial of payment by banks
Vantala Singanna, from a particularly vulnerable tribal group in G Madugula block of Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam district, recently set out to understand why he does not get Rythu Bharosa benefits like his fellow farmers. Rythu Bharosa is a scheme of AP Government which provides Rs 13,500 per year in three installments as financial assistance to farmers during the harvest season. This is important for tribal farmers as they struggle to secure loans through financial institutions and are often robbed by private moneylenders. Singanna met officials ranging from village volunteers (appointed by the government to improve last-mile public service delivery) to block agriculture and revenue officials, tribal welfare officers and bank employees. He found that the government had removed his name from the list of eligible beneficiaries.
bank rejection
We at Libtec set out to investigate the incident as the AP government transferred the second installment of benefits for this agricultural year in October 2021. (It will make the final transfer in January 2022.) We filed several RTI requests and interviewed implementing agencies. , We met 80 farmers and visited banks to document their struggle through this process.
In May 2021, about 1.09 lakh farmers were identified as beneficiaries of 11 tribal blocks of Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Paderu and payments were approved by the government. However, due to various technical reasons (bank rejection) in these blocks in the May 2021 transfer, the payments to 5,660 farmers were rejected by the banks. We found that most of these bank rejections were due to software mapping failures by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Of the 5,660 cases, 5,029 are unresolved. These farmers were also denied benefits in the transfers of October 2021. Collectively, these farmers were deprived of ₹4.61 crore in two installments. And the farmers cultivating on forest land will suffer an additional loss of ₹ 40 lakh in the upcoming third installment.
Such experiences are vital for us to understand the structural architecture that creates such saga. The PM Kisan Yojana of the central government has also faced similar issues. However, installments are paid as soon as the farmers solve the problem, as opposed to Rythu Bharosa. Farmers who had a bank decline would have previously had an agricultural year so that they could fix problems and transfer their profits. But for the October 2021 installment, he had only four to six months to do it. And failure to do so resulted in their names being removed from the beneficiary list.
no clarity on settlement
Given limited access to banking infrastructure, mobile and road connectivity, tribal farmers find it difficult to resolve bank rejections on their own. There is also a lack of understanding of the settlement process among field functionaries and bank employees. Neither the central government nor the state government has published written rules for settling bank rejections for block and panchayat level officers. The decision to remove names of farmers from the beneficiary list appears to have been taken at the state level without considering the realities of the region. This is in violation of the provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act which states that “every gram sabha shall be responsible for the identification or selection of persons as beneficiaries under poverty alleviation and other programmes”.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh has made the payment of old age pension in cash at the doorstep of the rights-holders through the well established Village Volunteer System. Given the robustness of the pension transfer mechanism and the maze of problems created by the opaque Aadhaar Payment Bridge system, it would be prudent for the AP Government to follow its own success model for farmers facing bank rejection in Rythu Bharosa . Or it should allow all the farmers to choose how they want to get their entitlement.
No accountability has been taken by any agency involved in rectifying bank rejections. The Department of Agriculture and Tribal Welfare, the Village Secretariat and Ward Secretariat, and the UIDAI and NPCI that handle these transfers, must all be ready to accept responsibility for ensuring that these rights reach farmers on time. Given the number of institutions and functionaries available, the state should resolve the bank rejection immediately. The government is now preparing to try again for the payment of all the affected farmers. However, farmers like Singanna will be left out unless the process gaps and complexities involved in resolving bank rejections are acknowledged.
Venkata Krishna Kagga and Chakradhar Buddha, and Ajay Palle Svero, who contributed to the article, are researchers at Libtech India
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