Rupee 1 compensation: K'taka Govt calls it 'test to avoid subsidy in wrong account'

Clarifying the recent reports of providing Rupee 1 subsidy to the farmers, the Karnataka Department of Revenue (District Management) on Sunday asserted that the measure was taken to test the account, to avoid input subsidy being credited to wrong accounts and to ensure that the money reaches the intended beneficiary (valid account number).

The Revenue Department in a letter issued by them said that that it has received the response file for Re 1 test on June 9 and full payment of the input subsidy due to each beneficiary shall be initiated on June 12.

The Karnataka government stated that farmers are being paid subsidy for the crop loss suffered due to drought through 'Parihara' which facilitates Aadhar enabled payment service (AEPS).

Parihara is a unique web based application developed by Revenue Department (RD) and 'Bhoomi' to disburse input subsidy through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

As per the reports, as on June 6, there were around 1, 82,000 eligible farmers without Aadhar seeded bank accounts.

To disburse input subsidy amount expeditiously to unseeded bank accounts, Re 1 was transferred to unseeded bank accounts through National Payment Cooperation of India (NPCT) enabled account based payment on June 6.

Earlier, the farmers in Karnataka were in for a shock when they received a compensation of Rupee 1 for damaged crops in their bank accounts.

However, the Congress Government in the state was quick to rebuff claims that the paltry relief was a mistake, saying this was a 'test case' to check authenticity of accounts after they were linked to Aadhaar recently.

Farmers in Vijapura, Dharwad, Hassan and Koppal districts said that one rupee was credited to their bank accounts by the State Revenue Department.

The Congress, which has been severely critical of the BJP's "insensitivity" towards farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, has now come under fire from the opposition.

Some farmers have suffered losses running into lakhs of rupees after crops went dry in the last drought.

Karnataka has seen successive droughts for six cropping seasons and farmers have been seeking compensation from the government.