Mangaluru: The incentive of ₹5 per litre paid by the State government to farmers producing milk has not reached 3,500 of them in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts as their banks have not seeded the accounts with Aadhaar number.

Raising the issue during the District Consultative Meeting of bankers here recently, Deputy Manager of Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers Union Madhusudhan Kamat said in the absence of Aadhaar seeding incentive totalling to ₹1.5 crore was laying with the Union.

“If the seeding is not done forthwith, this amount might go back to the government. For no fault, the farmer will lose money,” he said and added that the incentive of farmer lying unpaid ranged between ₹20 and ₹40,000. Mr. Kamat said farmers are going to the banks where the officials are sending them away by showing the linkage of their accounts with Aadhaar.

“What is shown to the farmer is the linkage of the account with Aadhaar that is done for KYC (Know Your Customer). This linkage is different from seeding the account with Aadhaar that is linked to National Payment Corporation of India,” Mr. Kamat said and added that since August 2016 it was mandatory to pay subsidy, honorariu,m and incentive from the government to accounts seeded with Aadhaar. Mr. Kamat said there was lack of knowledge among branch managers of the way to seed the accounts with Aadhaar.

Mr. Kamat said there were 65,000 milk producers in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi and they receive ₹6 crore as incentive every month. The incentive was being credited to farmer’s account till August 2016 when seeding of the account with Aadhaar became mandatory.

At that time only 83% of accounts of farmers were seeded with Aadhaar. The Union held held meetings with farmers and also met some bankers to know the problem. “We got to know the way the seeding can be done and accordingly asked bank managers to do. Some bankers obliged,” he said and added that nearly 99% of accounts were seeded with Aadhaar.

District Lead Bank Manager Raghava Yajamanya said as each bank has a different software, the process of seeding accounts with Aadhaar was different. He asked regional heads of banks attending the meeting to work with their IT personnel and make branch managers aware of the way to seed the bank account.

“If this system is not set right and DBT (direct benefit transfer) does not reach beneficiary from January 1, then the respective branch managers will be held accountable,” Mr. Yajamanya said.