Mumbai, Sept. 12 -- The Maharashtra government has deleted around 79,000 names from the beneficiary list under its ambitious welfare scheme for farmers, noting they were availing the scheme benefits despite not being eligible for the same, officials familiar with the matter said. The development came after the Union government last week sent the state a list of 144,000 names from the state who were under scrutiny for being beneficiaries under the centrally sponsored PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. After going through the list, the Mahayuti government realised that it was paying Rs.500 a month to 79,000 farmers under its Namo Shetkari Mahasanman Nidhi Yojana (NSMNY) even though they did not qualify for the benefit, officials said. The state uses the same list as the one for the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi to identify beneficiaries under its NSMNY, launched in April 2023. The state government has now deleted 79,000 names out of the 144,000 on the list flagged by the Centre, after finding that these farmers as well as their spouses were drawing the cash benefit. The names of the husbands have been omitted, officials said. Since the list is common for both schemes, these farmers had been drawing Rs.1,000 a month, twice the amount a farmer is entitled to receiving. The state deposits Rs.2,000 to the bank account of the beneficiary every four months. Recently, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced the disbursement of Rs.1,892.61 crore towards the seventh instalment under the NSMNY. The PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, launched by the Centre in April 2019, has over nine million beneficiaries in the western state. The ineligible farmers were discovered when the Centre was verifying data submitted by farmers under the Agri Stack drive, an agriculture department official said. Agri Stack is a unique identification number (UIN) assigned to every farmer in the country. Earlier, the state government had discovered around 2.6 million ineligible beneficiaries under its flagship Ladki Bahin scheme, as part of which a monthly aid of Rs.1,500 was provided to each woman in 21-65 age group....