Income Tax assessees and sitting or former Members of Parliament or State legislatures are among those who have been excluded from the scope of the Centre’s scheme of income support for farmers, which was announced in the Union budget last week.
In respect of the IT assessees, those who paid the tax in the last assessment year would be ineligible under the scheme, which envisages the payment of ₹6,000 per annum to marginal and small farmers (each holding cultivable land up to 2 hectares), according to the scheme’s operational guidelines.
The list of exclusions is pretty long.
It includes former and present holders of constitutional posts such as Governors or Election Commissioners; serving and retired officers and employees of the Union government or State governments including those in public sector enterprises and autonomous institutions and regular employees of local bodies. Class IV or Group D employees have been exempted from the exclusion. Likewise pensioners who are getting ₹10,000 or more every month will not be covered.
As in the case of parliamentarians and legislators, former and present heads of municipal corporations and district panchayats would also not be considered for the income support.
Professionals excluded
Professionals including doctors, engineers, lawyers, chartered accountants and architects have been excluded apart from institutional landholders, the guidelines show.
The Centre has made it clear that the cut-off date for determination of eligibility of beneficiaries under the scheme is February 1, 2019, and no subsequent changes would be considered for the eligibility of benefit for 5 years. However, the benefit would be allowed in cases where transfer of ownership of cultivable land takes place on account of succession due to death of the landowner. Also, cases where the transfer of ownership happened due to reasons such as purchase, succession, and through will or gift, between December 1, 2018, and January 31, 2019, would be eligible for coverage.
Taking cognisance of the system of community-based land ownership rights in some of the northeastern States, the Centre has stated that an alternative implementation mechanism would be developed and approved by a committee of Union Ministers in charge of Development of North East Region, Land Resources and Agriculture and State Chief Ministers concerned.
Published - February 07, 2019 10:03 pm IST
