Implementation of Krishak Bandhu (Assured Income) Scheme

Government of West Bengal
Department of Agriculture
NABANNA
325, Sarat Chatterjee Road, Howrah – 711 102.

No. 172-AG/O/9M(Nab)-01/2019 Dated, Howrah the, 25th January, 2019.

From: Joint Secretary to the Govt. of West Bengal.

To: 1. The Director of Agriculture & EOS, West Bengal

2. Deputy Director of Agriculture (Admin) ……………… District (All)

Subject: Implementation of Krishak Bandhu (Assured Income) Scheme – regarding.

Ref.: This department Memo No: 117-AG/O/9M(Nab)-01/2019 dated 17th January, 2019

Sir,

In reference to the above, I am directed to forward herewith the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for implementation of Krishak Bandhu (Assured Income) Scheme to be effective from the current Rabi/ Boro season. The format for Application Forms (both in Bengali and in English) to be used for enrolment of the eligible farmers is also attached herewith.

This is for your kind information and taking necessary action.

Enclo: As stated.

Yours faithfully,

Joint Secretary
to the Govt. of West Bengal

Krishak Bandhu

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of Krishak Bandhu Scheme, West Bengal

Department of Agriculture Government of West Bengal

The Department of Agriculture, Government of West Bengal has introduced the “Krishak Bandhu Scheme (KBS)” on 1st January, 2019 to support farmers financially during pre-production stage to make agriculture profitable for the farmers and to provide them social security so that their families are not put to distress in the event of farmer’s untimely demise. The scheme is to be implemented with effect from 01.01.2019. The ‘Krishak Bandhu’ scheme has two components viz. Krishak Bandhu (Assured Income) component and the Krishak Bandhu (Death Benefit) component. The benefit of the scheme will be extended to all the farmers of the State including the recorded Bhagchasi (Share cropper).

In Krishak Bandhu (Assured Income) scheme every farmer will be eligible to get financial support of Rs. 5000/- per year per acre of land owned payable in two equal instalments i.e. @ Rs. 2500/- (Kharif & Rabi). The maximum financial assistance will be Rs. 5000-/ only per farmer per year. Farmers having less than 1.0acre of land will be eligible for assistance on pro rata basis subject to a minimum of Rs. 2000/- per farmer per year. All farmers having cultivable land and possessing RoR are eligible for getting assistance under this scheme. Recorded Bhagchasi will also be eligible to get the benefit.

Under Krishak Bandhu death benefit scheme, in the event of death of a farmer within the age group of 18 to 60 years, the nominee or eligible family member of the deceased will be eligible for one time grant of Rs. 2,00,000/- (Rupees Two Lakh) only. All farm families including recorded Bhagchasi in the age group of 18 to 60 years irrespective of their family income will be eligible.

This Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) pertains to the assured income support component which will be effective from current Rabi/ Boro season. De novo registration will start on 28 January, 2019 in camp mode at Gram Panchayat level throughout the State. The West Bengal State Co-operative Bank Ltd. (WBSCB Ltd.) will be the Nodal bank for the scheme and it will operate through the DCCBs of the respective districts. The assistance under Krishak Bandhu (assured income) scheme will be disbursed to the eligible farmers through cheque or bank transfer.

The Agriculture Department will be the Nodal Department for this scheme and other allied Departments will extend cooperation in all respect for implementation of the scheme. The Webel (WBEIDC) is entrusted as nodal agency for designing, delivering and managing comprehensive ICT based process documentation & enrolment of farmers across the state.

The major steps involved to implement the scheme successfully are as follows:

1. Formation of State level, District Level and Block level Implementation & monitoring committee.
2. To Develop a Krishak Bandhu portal and ICT based process for implementation of the scheme
3. Awareness campaign for farmers’ registration.
4. Printing & Disbursement of Printed cheques / Bank Transfer.
5. Out sourcing of skilled persons and active involvement of ground level field staff of Agriculture, P&RD and other allied departments for enrolment process.
6. Organizing registration camp across the State at GP level from 28th January 2019.
7. Uploading of enrolment data: Quick Pre-registration followed by complete digitization of the application form after validation with L&LR data.
8. Co-ordinate with technical stakeholders and data transfer.
9. Document management after registration – Digital archive and physical archive.
10. Preparation & Delivery of Krishak Bandhu Smart Card (Chip based ID card).
11. Printing & Disbursement of Printed cheques/ Bank Transfer.
12. Continuous process of Financial assistance release and Krishak Bandhu card update at Cheque distribution camps through POS Machine.

Committee for execution at State, District & Block level.

1. A State Level Monitoring Committee may be formed to implement & monitor the Scheme as follows:

I. Chief Secretary as Chairperson

II. Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture Department as Convener- Member.

III. Secretary/ Principal Secretary/ Additional Chief Secretary of Finance, L&LR, I&CA, Disaster Management & CD, P & RD, Cooperation, FPI & Horticulture departments as Members

IV. Director of Agriculture & EOS

V. Managing Director, WBSCB Ltd.

VI. Representative from WEBEL (WBEIDC)

2. An implementation and monitoring committee at the District level (DLIMC) may be formed comprising of the following officials for the successful implementation of the scheme. The committee will take responsibility of publicity (through printing of leaflet, poster / banner / tableau etc.), enrolment of farmers and delivery of cheques and smart cards to the eligible farmers.

DDA (Admin) will utilize the services of Asst. DA (Admin) & his establishment of the Sub-Division for execution of the scheme.

3. At the block level- Block level Execution & Monitoring Committee (BLEMC).

An execution cum monitoring committee may be formed at the Block level with the following members for successful implementation of the scheme. The committee will take responsibility of publicity, enrolment and delivery of cheques etc.

At GP level the services of the field staff of Agriculture & Allied departments, P& RD Department, L&LR Department (RI, Surveyor, Amin, Bhumi Sahayak etc.) may be utilized for checking/ comparison of documents, facilitation of enrolment process and delivery of cheques / Smart Krishak Bandhu card. The GP level team will work under the directives of the BDO and Asst DA of the block with the technical help of the WEBEL.

Awareness campaign for farmers registration under Krishak Bandhu (assured income) scheme:

In coordination with the Agriculture, Land & land Reforms and other relevant line departments, Webel will ensure maximum possible farmers registration during Gram Panchayat level Krishak Bandhu Camps. Extensive awareness campaign should be done for awareness of the farmers. The following modes of campaign may be used.

Develop ICT based process control Framework:

Framework:

Secured cloud and mobility platform to hold farmers registration data, software based validation check with L&LR Land record database server, link with Cooperative Bank for digital fund release instruction, auto fund disbursement MIS update at Krishak Bandhu Dashboard (Feed to CM Dashboard) and multi departmental, multi-agency access control with different access permission layers.

ICT based process execution steps:

1. Access permission layers and log-in ID for multi-department, multi-agency users.
2. Digital tracking of Mouza level awareness campaign with Mobile App (Online and Offline mode) and Portal view of Map.
3. Farmers’ Digital registration at GP camps with Mobile App.
4. Complete documentation at GP camps with Mobile App – For enlisted farmers.
5. Digital Acknowledgement receipt number and SMS.
6. Complete form digitization with Mobile App.
7. Digital validation check with L&LR Database server.
8. Block level final approval of the newly registered farmers list.
9. Farmers Unique ID Generation for Acceptance and SMS in registered mobile. If application gets rejected, then Cancellation SMS to be sent to farmers’ mobile.
10. Digital calcultion of benefit amount based on Digital L&LR Confirmation of plot holding.
11. Auto instruction of Directorate (Block/ Sub-Division/ District/ HQ) and Department to Cooperative Bank for Kharif and Rabi assistance.
12. Cheque release & Cheque encashment / Bank Transfer MIS from Cooperative Bank to Krishak Bandhu Dashboard.
13. Digital confirmation of physical Cheque distribution at Block level camps.
14. Online application and Cheque release process control – Assistance to farmers family against natural/ unnatural death

Coordinate with technical stakeholders

Webel will coordinate with following technical stakeholders to develop the ICT based process control:

1. L&LR Department – For applicants’ data validation with land records, digitally.
2. State Cooperative Bank – For digital linkage of Cheque/ Bank Transfer instruction and getting payment MIS.
3. Department of Agriculture – From pre-registration campaign to on spot registration document verification support by Govt. officials to further process management, handholding and user training.
4. CDAC – SMS Communication gateway for applicants and monitoring committee communication alerts.
5. Other stakeholders – All related stakeholders on the process including technology collaborator, manpower, cloud space, smartphone and other hardware etc. support providers.

For implementation of the scheme, the following procedures may be followed:

I. WEBEL to develop the requisite portal at the earliest.

II. Forms for enrolment of the targeted farmers under Krishak Bandhu Scheme (Designed by WEBEL) to be printed by Agriculture Department/WEBEL.

III. De novo enrolment of farmers will be done in a camp mode on pre- fixed dates. GP Office may be considered as venue for enrolment camps.

IV. Minimum 6 days will be required to complete the process of enrolment of farmers in each of the GP camps. The 1st Phase of enrolment will start from 28th January 2019 for holding camps in the GP offices. A mop up round may be held in the 2nd Phase by holding camps in the Block offices for enrolment of left out farmers.

V. Basic details of the farmers as appearing in the enrolment form will be immediately captured through an App to be developed by WEBEL at the camps and an Acknowledgment Number will be generated and a SMS will be sent to the concerned farmer’s mobile as acknowledgement of receipt of the enrolment form. Later on other requisite details will be duly entered in the system.

VI. Each camp to be manned by 12 persons, out of which 8 will be from WEBEL for capturing details from enrolment forms submitted by individual farmers and 4 from various departments of state government (preferably from Agriculture, Horticulture, L&LR, P&RD etc.) for camp management.

VII. To cover 3354 GPs, the required number of outsourced manpower (considering 2 sets of 8 member team in each Block) is 345x2x8 = 5520 and required number of Government officials will be 8 (eight) per Block (2 camps x 4 officials).

VIII. Sourcing of manpower, promotional activities for the project as well as data management i.e. capturing, storing, generation of data for printing of cheques and data security will be done exclusively by WEBEL. WEBEL to provide MIS in a portal along with a real time Dashboard facility which can be viewed by users having USER ID and Password.

IX. On the basis of captured data of individual farmers, WEBEL will issue chip based Smart Card containing security features. Each block will be provided with POS machine(s), so that, while distributing cheques, entire process gets tracked digitally. At the same time Smart cards will get updated with benefit distribution details against each name.

X. Smart Cards will be delivered to each block after necessary sorting by WEBEL. In turn the Smart Cards will be delivered to individual farmers by each Block within a quick time on the basis of unique ID to be produced by the farmers by same set of outsourced manpower, maintaining a registry.

XI. Cheques to be printed by Co-operative Banks on the basis of data that will be shared by WEBEL. The pre-printed cheques will bear a printed signature of the authorized signatory.

Farmers registration process in detail at GP Level

Out of Approximately 72,00,000 farm family holders of WB, each of 345 block has Avg. 21,114 household and each of 3,354 Gram Panchayats has average 2,146 household.

Considering GP: Village ratio is approx 1:10, farmers of 2 villages (Approx. 400-500) will be registered per day at GP level camps and date-village match calendar will be announced during Awareness campaign as well as will be available at Departmental portal. GP Camp needs four parallel registration desks running for consecutive 6-10 days.

Trained manpower, equipped with smart phone, who will digitize physical applications on the spot and generate farmers Acknowledgement ID. In each GP, four separate line of applicant farmers need to be maintained to handle the rush within short period.

One trained personnel at each line will assist the farmers with form fill-up, while another trained personnel will take pictures etc. Thereby there will be total eight trained personnel in co-ordination with four Govt. representatives who will check the documents being brought by the farmers.

For this purpose, private agri-extension workers namely Gram Doot may be utilized.

This outsourced activity will be monitored by Block level committee.

Detailed process flow for enrolment and issue of cheques:

1. The farmer is to fill up the form in the GP where he has maximum land holding.
2. The farmer has to fill up the form with the following documents:

• RoR of Cultivable Land/proof of Record in case of Recorded Bhagchasi.
• Voter ID card (mandatory): This is the control document, 2 entry cannot be done using the same EPIC.
• Bank pass book 1st page clearly showing IFSC and Account details.
• 1st page of KCC pass book.

3. In the Registration camp, there will be 4 desks for registration and two desks for document check and approval. There will be a total of twelve manpower for each camp.

• 2 document checking desks: manned by 4 govt. representatives.
• 4 registration desks for data entry/photography/digitization etc. manned by 8 field personnel of WEBEL.
• The Govt. Representatives might constitute of Govt./ semi Govt. employees at GP Level like Executive Assistant, Secretary, Nirman Sahayak, KPS and other GP level staff etc. The services of such persons may be utilized for both the registration as well as implementation of the scheme.

4. There will be two or more such teams per block, who will camp at each GP for about 6 working days.
5. The Govt. Representatives will be present for document checking / comparison and will report to the Block Asst. D.A. They will compare the following:

• The name of applicant same as that in bank document, voter card, and land record
• All field of the form are filled up
• All required documents are attached and they are in right sequence.

6. After necessary checking by Govt. Representative, the forms will be sent to the registration desk for data entry by WEBEL personnel.
7. The WEBEL Data entry operator will then

• Enter minimum fields
• Take photograph
• Generate Acknowledgement Number
• Write the acknowledgement Number on the form and acknowledgement foil
• Give the acknowledgement part back to the applicant.

8. In the evening, the Data entry operator will do the complete data entry, and after the completion of data entry, the said data will be cross checked with L&LR data with Application Programming Interface (API) integration.
9. The list of all applications, after validation from L&LR, shall be sent by the software to the Block ADA for final approval.
10. Before ADA Block gives his/ her final approval, one level of quality cross check will be done by 4 WBEIDC personnel at Block ADA Office. Computer/ Laptop with internet connection will be provided to them during entire period by ADA Block.

• If the data has been successfully matched with L&LR database, then ADA may approve the applications for further processing.
• If the data has not matched with L&LR database, the applications can be viewed by ADA with the reasons of mismatch and ADA may take decision regarding approval/rejection of such applications.

11. Once the data is approved by ADA, the Krishak Bandhu ID will be generated, and the concerned farmer will get an SMS confirmation for successful generation of KBID.
12. If the application is rejected, the farmer will get an SMS mentioning the reason for rejection.
13. In general one farmer might have more than one khatian numbers in different mouzas, although there will be only one khatian in one mouza. In case of multiple khatian, few khatian may not be validated by cross checking with L&LR database:

• The farmer will be registered and KB ID will be generated on the basis of accepted khatian.
• The assistance amount will be calculated on the basis of the accepted khatian.
• The farmer can later amend his registration to update the not validated khatian.

14. For first few weeks, L&LR database matching may not be integrated technically due to time constraint.
15. For the 542 mouzas, where land record is not digitized, the KBID will be manually generated, on the basis of land verification from L &LR Dept. at Block / GP level. After verification the data will be uploaded in KB portal & KB Card will be issued accordingly.
16. The land owners whose part or complete land holding has gone under Bhagchas with a registered Bhagchasi they will not get any benefit for the land parts under bhagchas. The registered Bhagchasi will get the benefit for those parts.
17. For those who are not able to get registered under the scheme within the specified deadline a separate time window has to be given for registration at a later date.
18. The WEBEL personnel will keep separate stack of physical forms for both accepted and rejected applications in designated space, district-wise.
19. With the details and KB ID, the Krishak Bandhu smart card will be centrally generated by WEBEL in a secured place.
20. The distribution of cards will be done in camp mode by the WEBEL similar to the Registration process after the enrolment process is complete or as decided by the DLIMC of the respective district.
21. Once the KB ID is generated, simultaneously the eligible amount as per Krishak Bandhu scheme will be calculated automatically. The eligible amount will be displayed in the “KRISHAK BANDHU” App and Portal.
22. Based on the registered data, Mouza/ District wise database will be generated in the portal.
23. District wise payment request will be raised by Dept. of Agriculture and based on this request West Bengal State Co-operative Bank will generate individual Order cheque/ bank transfer for each beneficiary. When the financial assistance will be transferred to farmers by order cheques by the WBSCB, the cheques may be handed over to the DDA (Admin) of the respective district along with mouza wise beneficiary list / Acquittance roll of each block. The Acquittance Roll should contain particulars of beneficiary, KBID, cheque no. and eligible amount. For keeping the records at district end regarding receiving, checking & delivery of Cheques at block level and accounts thereof, at least 2 (two) skilled persons at District level and 1(one) person at block level will be required to be outsourced. Outsourcing of five persons will also be required at block level during distribution of cheques, operation of Card Reader etc.
24. After the generation of order cheques the same shall be updated on portal by WBSCB and can be tracked in MIS.
25. The cheques will be distributed by Dept. of Agriculture. At the point of distribution, there will be smart card readers and the beneficiary farmer will swipe his/ her smart card while taking the cheque, so that the receipt is updated in his account and the portal.

The cheques may be distributed from the Block level office premises or on Camp mode to be decided by the District Level Implementation & Monitoring committee (DLIMC). For distribution of cheques, Card Reader Operations and receiving acquittance roll (hard copy) and other relevant works outsourcing of skilled persons (minimum eight in number per block) will be required during distribution period. Mobility support and fund for contingent expenditure may be made available to the DDA (Admin) for this purpose.

26. The hard copies of Application forms along with relevant documents will be stored at a secured place at District/ Sub-Division/ Block Level office under the custody of DDA (Admin) of the district or at Sub-Division by the respective Asst. DA (Admin) as per decision of the DLIMC.

No. 172-AG dated 25.01.2019, Source