PM-KISAN Extended to 2030-31: Tenant Farmer Gap
Why in the news
The Cabinet renewed PM-KISAN until 2030-31. A Business Standard editorial argued the renewal should be used to include tenants and to shift fertiliser subsidy into direct payments.
Key facts
- Type: Central Sector scheme, 100% Centre-funded, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
- Start: 24 February 2019 (Gorakhpur); effective from 1 December 2018.
- Benefit: Rs 6,000 a year, three instalments of Rs 2,000 each, by DBT.
- Reach: about 9.5 crore farmers; the amount has not changed since launch.
- Checks: Aadhaar authentication, e-KYC and land-record verification.
- The 2-hectare ceiling was dropped in June 2019.
Who is covered
| Covered | Left out |
|---|---|
| Landholding farmer families listed in state land records | Institutional landholders |
| Families with serving or retired government employees | |
| Income-tax payers and pensioners drawing Rs 10,000+ a month | |
| Doctors, engineers, lawyers and similar professionals |
Concerns: the tenant gap
- Payments follow land ownership, so tenants and landless cultivators, many of them actual farmers in states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab, miss out.
- They bear the same input costs and climate risks yet have the weakest access to formal credit.
- Proposed fix: state-level verification of real cultivators, as in Andhra Pradesh’s Crop Cultivator Rights Act model.
Way forward: fertiliser subsidy
- At present the subsidy goes to makers and importers so that urea and DAP sell at fixed prices.
- The editorial suggests using the JAM and DBT network to pay farmers directly, estimating need from landholding and cropping pattern.
- Expected gains: fewer leakages and diversions, less over-use of cheap urea.
- Hurdles: price shock for small farmers and the politics of dearer urea; the idea dates back to 2016 DBT pilots.
Why it matters
- PM Kisan Maandhan contributions can be deducted from it; its data supports the Kisan Credit Card drive and Agri Stack farmer ID.
- Being renewed to 2030-31 makes its flaws, such as tenant exclusion and an unrevised amount, more pressing.
Exam angle
- Nodal ministry: Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
- State tenant-oriented schemes named: Odisha’s KALIA; top-ups from Telangana’s Rythu Bandhu and Andhra Pradesh’s Annadatha Sukhibhava.
- Standard questions: launch date, amount, instalments, beneficiaries, extension year.