INCOME SECURITY OF SMALL AND MARGINAL FARMERS: PRADHAN MANTRI KISAN SAMMAN NIDHI (PM-KISAN)

INTRODUCTION

Small and marginal farmers constitute the overwhelming majority of India’s agricultural households, yet they often face unstable farm incomes, rising input costs, climate-related risks and limited access to formal credit. In this context, income support has emerged as an important component of agricultural and social protection policy. The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is one of the Union Government’s major interventions aimed at providing a predictable minimum income support to landholding farmer families.

PM-KISAN is a Central Sector Scheme with 100% funding by the Government of India. It provides ₹6,000 per year to eligible farmer families in three equal instalments of ₹2,000, transferred directly into their bank accounts through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mechanism. The scheme became operational from 1 December 2018 and was formally launched on 24 February 2019.

The significance of PM-KISAN goes beyond the transfer of ₹6,000. It represents a shift towards direct, technology-enabled income support, where government assistance is linked to digitally verified land records, Aadhaar authentication and bank accounts. Thus, the scheme connects farmer welfare, income security, financial inclusion and digital governance.

PRADHAN MANTRI KISAN SAMMAN NIDHI (PM-KISAN): DETAILED OVERVIEW

PM-KISAN was originally conceived to provide income support to small and marginal landholding farmers, particularly those with cultivable land holdings of up to 2 hectares. The scheme was subsequently expanded to cover all eligible landholding farmer families, subject to specified exclusion criteria.

Under the scheme, an eligible farmer family receives ₹6,000 annually, paid in three instalments:

·       ₹2,000 – April to July

·       ₹2,000 – August to November

·       ₹2,000 – December to March

The money is transferred directly into the beneficiary's bank account through DBT, reducing dependence on intermediaries and improving transparency. Aadhaar authentication and digitally verified land records have become important components of beneficiary identification and payment.

START AND EVOLUTION OF THE SCHEME

The 22nd instalment, released in March 2026, transferred more than ₹18,640 crore to over 9.32 crore farmer families. Of these, more than 2.15 crore were women beneficiaries, highlighting the scheme's relevance to women's economic security in rural India

WHO BENEFITS FROM PM-KISAN?

The scheme has developed into one of India's largest direct income-support programmes. Official PM-KISAN data shows that the number of farmers receiving benefits has generally remained around 9–10 crore per instalment, although the beneficiary count varies across agricultural seasons because of verification, eligibility and authentication processes.

The latest PM-KISAN portal data records 9,44,65,646 farmers benefiting during April–July 2026–27, demonstrating the continued scale of the programme.

HOW HAS PM-KISAN FUNCTIONED?

PM-KISAN represents a major shift in India's agricultural welfare policy—from indirect and intermediary-based support towards direct income transfers. Its large-scale DBT architecture has enabled the government to reach millions of farmers with relatively low administrative intermediation. However, its success in transferring money should not automatically be equated with success in ensuring adequate and equitable farm income.

Key Achievements of PM-KISAN

The greatest achievement of PM-KISAN is therefore not the size of the transfer but the transformation in the delivery mechanism. It demonstrates how a large agricultural welfare programme can use DBT and digital identification to deliver assistance directly to beneficiaries. For small farmers facing temporary liquidity constraints, even a relatively modest transfer can help finance agricultural inputs or reduce dependence on informal borrowing.

However, efficient delivery does not necessarily mean adequate income security. The ₹6,000 annual transfer remains relatively small when compared with the cost of cultivation and the broader risks faced by farming households. This leads us to the more important question: who is still being left out?

MAJOR LIMITATIONS AND FAILURES OF PM-KISAN

A significant limitation of PM-KISAN is its landholding-based eligibility framework. The scheme identifies beneficiaries primarily on the basis of cultivable land recorded in their name. Consequently, a person may actively cultivate agricultural land as a tenant or sharecropper, but if the land is not recorded in that person's name, cultivation alone does not make them eligible for PM-KISAN. This creates an important social-justice question about whether agricultural income support should remain linked primarily to landholding records or extend to those who actually cultivate the land.

The second major concern is adequacy. ₹6,000 a year can provide useful supplementary income, but it cannot compensate for volatile crop prices, rising input costs, climate shocks and indebtedness. PM-KISAN therefore works better as a liquidity-support mechanism than as a complete farmer-income-security programme.

Finally, the scheme demonstrates an important paradox of digital welfare. Digitisation can reduce leakage, but it can also create new forms of exclusion when land records are outdated or authentication and banking processes fail. Thus, the challenge for the next phase of PM-KISAN is not simply to transfer money to more people, but to ensure that the right people—including actual cultivators—are able to access the support.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

PM-KISAN has been highly significant as a direct income-transfer mechanism, but its social-justice impact remains constrained by its dependence on land ownership and the modest size of the transfer.

The central challenge is to move from “landholder-based income support” towards “cultivator-centred social protection.”

That would make a very strong transition into the next section of the dossier: “What reforms can make PM-KISAN more inclusive and effective?”

WAY FORWARD

PM-KISAN has established a strong foundation for direct farmer income support, but its next phase should focus on inclusion, adequacy and resilience rather than merely expanding the number of beneficiaries.

·       Address the landholding gap: Examine, in coordination with State Governments, appropriate mechanisms to extend income support to genuine tenant farmers and sharecroppers who are currently outside the PM-KISAN eligibility framework, while maintaining effective beneficiary verification.

·       Improve land records: Accelerate digitisation, updating and mutation of land records so that genuine beneficiaries are not excluded because of outdated ownership details.

·       Strengthen grievance redressal: Establish simple, accessible mechanisms at the village and district levels to resolve payment failures, Aadhaar authentication problems and beneficiary-status disputes.

·       Make support more responsive: Periodically review the ₹6,000 annual assistance in light of inflation, cultivation costs and regional variations.

·       Strengthen women's access: Improve recognition of women farmers and joint land ownership, ensuring that women who actively cultivate land are not invisible within the welfare system.

·       Integrate income support with agricultural policy: PM-KISAN should work alongside crop insurance, institutional credit, irrigation, MSP/procurement, FPOs, agricultural extension and climate-resilient farming.

·       Balance digitisation with human intervention: Technology should improve transparency without making welfare inaccessible to farmers who face digital, banking or documentation barriers.

CONCLUSION

PM-KISAN marks an important transition in India's welfare architecture by making direct and technology-enabled income support a central component of agricultural policy. Its enormous scale and DBT mechanism have improved the efficiency and transparency of farmer support.

However, income transfer alone cannot guarantee income security. The exclusion of tenant farmers, dependence on land records, digital barriers and the limited size of the transfer reveal the gap between administrative coverage and substantive social justice.

The future of PM-KISAN should therefore be guided by a simple principle:

From transferring money to landholders to securing the livelihoods of cultivators.

A truly inclusive agricultural social-protection system must ensure that every person who depends on cultivation for livelihood—not merely those whose names appear in land records—is visible to the welfare state.

RELATED READING

For a comprehensive understanding of PM-KISAN and agricultural social protection, students should connect the issue with the following areas:

·       Agricultural Income & Farmer Welfare – Farm incomes, rising input costs and the challenges faced by small and marginal farmers.

·       Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) – Aadhaar-based authentication, financial inclusion and technology-enabled welfare delivery.

·       Land Reforms & Land Records – Land ownership, tenancy, fragmentation and the role of digitised land records in welfare delivery.

·       Agricultural Credit & Indebtedness – Institutional credit, informal borrowing and the relationship between liquidity support and farm debt.

·       MSP & Agricultural Markets – Minimum Support Price, procurement, market access and the problem of remunerative farm prices.

·       Crop Insurance & Climate Risk – PM Fasal Bima Yojana, crop losses and the growing vulnerability of farmers to climate change.

·       Women in Agriculture – Women's contribution to farming, land ownership and recognition of women as farmers.

·       Digital Welfare & Social Justice – The opportunities and exclusion risks associated with Aadhaar, e-KYC, DBT and digitised welfare systems.

·       SDG 1 & SDG 2 – Poverty reduction, food security and sustainable agriculture.

GS PAPER II – MAINS PRACTICE QUESTIONS

1. “PM-KISAN represents a shift from indirect agricultural subsidies towards direct income support.” Examine its achievements and limitations as an instrument of farmer welfare.
(15 Marks, 250 Words)

2. Landholding-based welfare schemes can improve targeting but may exclude vulnerable cultivators without formal land titles. Discuss in the context of PM-KISAN.
(15 Marks, 250 Words)

3. “Digitalisation of welfare delivery can simultaneously promote transparency and create new forms of exclusion.” Analyse with reference to PM-KISAN.
(10 Marks, 150 Words)

4. PM-KISAN provides important liquidity support to farmers, but income support alone cannot ensure sustainable agricultural livelihoods. Discuss the complementary reforms required to strengthen farmer income security.
(15 Marks, 250 Words)