The Mamata Banerjee government has decided to launch a verification drive to identify ineligible beneficiaries of Krishak Bandhu scheme as it suspects that a handsome amount is being paid to them.

Right now, the state government spends more than Rs 6,000 crore annually to provide financial assistance to nearly 66 lakh farmers under the scheme. A farmer having at least 1 acre gets Rs 10,000 annually, other categories — share croppers and small farmers — receive a minimum assistance of Rs 4,000 a year.

“The agriculture department has decided to identify the ineligible beneficiaries under the scheme to reduce the burden on the state exchequer which is heavily stressed after launching welfare schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar following the Assembly polls,” said a senior government official.

According to sources, the government has received complaints that many of the beneficiaries are ineligible for a variety of reasons.

“We have identified some beneficiaries who are drawing financial benefits even after they sold their land. In such cases, the government is paying assistance to the former owner and the current owner against the same land parcel. This was possible as the government did not check the land records so far,” said an official.

For example, a person had 1 acre land when he had first applied for the assistance two years ago. But later on, the person sold a portion of the land to somebody. Now, the original owner continues to receive the same amount as he did not give any declaration to the government. Moreover, the person who purchased land from him is also getting assistance against the newly purchased plots.

“Now, we have been asked to verify land records of all beneficiaries and recover the amount given to the ineligible people,” said an official in the agriculture department.

The sources said as land records of almost 95 per cent of the mouzas in the state had already been uploaded on the Banglar Bhumi portal, it would not be tough to verify the beneficiaries’ eligibility.

The agriculture department has already asked officials in respective districts to identify the ineligible beneficiaries and ensure that the amount transferred to them is refunded to an account of the state cooperative bank.

The idea, the sources said, was borrowed from the Centre which started identifying ineligible beneficiaries of the PM-Kisan scheme. The Centre pays farmers Rs 6,000 annually in three installments under the scheme.

“The central scheme has several exclusion criteria. People who are in government jobs, who pay income tax and who are in certain professions cannot apply for the scheme. The Centre has recently identified thousands of such ineligible beneficiaries and the process of getting back the amount transferred to them has started,” said a source.

In Bengal, 16,205 ineligible beneficiaries of the PM-Kisan scheme have been identified and Rs 5.3 crore has to be recovered from them.

“It is still not clear how many ineligible beneficiaries of the Krishak Bandhu scheme are there.… It is suspected that there are many as the number of beneficiaries jumped from 46 lakh to 66 lakh only when the government decided to fork out the amounts based on self-declarations if one fails to submit land records,” said a senior official.