The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved a new Central Sector Scheme, namely, the Pradhan Mantri - Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) Scheme, seeking to provide income support to all Small and Marginal landholder farmers' families with cultivable land holding upto 2 hectare across the country, by way of payment of Rs 6000/- per year, subject to certain exclusions, has been launched by the Prime Minister on the 24 February 2019. The amount is being released in three 4-monthly installments of Rs 2000 each over the year, to be credited into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries held in destination banks through Direct Benefit Transfer mode. A total amount of more than Rs 2000 crore has already been released to more than one crore farmers' families across the country in the first lot of 1st installment. Further releases for the 1st installment to the remaining beneficiaries are being made.

The 2nd instalment under the scheme would be admissible after the1st of April, 2019. In this connection, it is stated that the Union Cabinet, while approving the scheme on 1 February 2019, made Aadhaar seeding of the beneficiaries' data compulsory for release of 2nd installment onwards. However, it would be difficult to get 100% Aadhaar seeding for release of funds for 2nd installment, as efficient seeding of beneficiaries' details with Aadhaar requires bio-metric authentication. Demographic seeding will result in large scale rejection as the spellings of names have to be exactly the same. Non-seeding of beneficiaries' details with Aadhaar number will delay the release of 2nd installment as it is due on 1 April 2019 and will cause discontent among the farmers. Therefore, this condition has been relaxed. The condition will remain applicable for release of 3rd installment onwards. However, Aadhaar number shall be compulsory for release of 2nd installment. The Government will take adequate measures to validate the data before payment is made.