Introduction :- 

Objective: To provide income support to all Small and Marginal landholding farmer families having cultivable land , supplement the financial needs of the farmers in procuring various inputs to ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields, commensurate with the anticipated farm income.

Benefits:

• Under the scheme, financial benefit as given below will be provided to all Small and Marginal landholder farmer families across the country
• Landholder Farmer families with total cultivable holding upto 2 hectares shall be provided a benefit of Rs.6000 per annum per family payable in three equal installments, every four months.
• Multiple land parcels (even if each is less than 2 hectares) held by a single family will be pooled together to determine eligibility.
• Even landholdings, bigger than 10 hectares, will be eligible for benefits under the scheme, if owned by multiple families (e.g. If five brothers jointly own a single 10 hectare holding, each of them will be eligible for the scheme).
• Responsibility of identifying the landholder farmer family eligible for benefit under the scheme shall be of the State/UT Government. The lists of eligible beneficiaries would be published at the village level to ensure transparency. Exclusions: Certain categories of beneficiaries of higher economic status such as institutional land holders, former and present holder of constitutional posts, persons who paid income tax in last assessment year etc. shall not be eligible for benefit under the scheme.
• For the purpose of exclusion State/UT Government can certify the eligibility of the beneficiary based on self-declaration by the beneficiaries. A dedicated PM Kisan Portal will be launched for implementation of the scheme. This is a Central Sector Scheme and will be funded fully by the Government of India.

Need : -

The agriculture sector employs over 50% of the workforce either directly or indirectly, and remains the main source of livelihood for over 70% of rural households. Thus, economic development is not possible without sustained overhaul of agriculture in India.

• Stagnant farm income: Indian agriculture has been marred with stagnant and uncertain farm income. According to a report by NITI Aayog, between 1993-94 and 2015-16, the income per cultivator grew at an annual rate of just 3.4%. To achieve the target of doubling farmers’ real income, it will have to grow at 10.4% annually between 2015-16 and 2022-23. This is almost impossible to achieve without any supplemental support.
• High Indebtedness: More than half of the agricultural households in India are in debt, with average debt of Rs 47,000. National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) 2014 says that average farmer income was around Rs 3,081 per month. Rural Distress & Farmer Suicides: According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report (2015), over 8000 farmers and 4500 agricultural labourers have committed suicide.
• Supply Side Constraints: Farmers are unable to get remunerative prices for their produce, especially for non-MSP commodities, because of the regulations in domestic market (e.g. stocking limitations under Essential Commodities Act 1955), restrictions in export market & externalities like depressed international prices.
• Increased Public Unrest: In 2018, there were 13 massive protests held by farmers across the country, which has put significant pressure on the Government to respond appropriately.

Benefits of PM-KISAN :-

• For the first time, an attempt has been made to transfer income directly to farmers without using price (of either inputs or output) as a policy tool. Earlier, the focus has mainly been on provision of inputs at lower price (input subsidies) and provision of a higher output price (MSP).Since benefits are not linked to production of any crop, the resultant supply-demand imbalance would be minimal, unlike in the case of MSPs.
•  It can replace input subsidies, many of which have resulted in gross overuse of resources (e.g. pesticides, free electricity etc.) resulting in soil degradation & declining water tables in states like Punjab. When raising farmers’ income is the main objective, direct transfer may perhaps be a more appropriate instrument.
• Many farmers still depend on informal sources (local arhatiyas, moneylenders etc.) for credit. There are substantial delays in payment by procurement centres (e.g. in case of sugarcane), which leads to distress selling. Providing assured supplemental income to the vulnerable farmer families would help them meet their emergent needs especially before the harvest season.
• It would improve the credit uptake and boost rural consumption demand. The cash transfers have greater efficiency than loan waivers & subsidies, as they enable poor households to directly purchase required goods & services as well as enhance their market choices.
• With the support of a minimum income, youths from farm households may be inspired to start enterprises or take higher training or look for higher paying non-farm jobs.

Issues in conception & implementation :-

• Insufficient Amount Annual direct income transfer (DIT) under PM-KISAN would be only about 5-8% of their existing income levels. Also, it is less in comparison to schemes rolled out in Telangana (Rythu Bandhu) and Odisha (KALIA).
• Beneficiary selection Under this scheme, family is being defined as a unit, while most other government schemes use household (group of people living together using common kitchen) as a unit. The re-classification might be an administrative challenge. The scheme is not universal in nature. Strict targeting is prone to corruption due to bureaucratic discretion and politics. Moreover, exclusion errors are more common in targeted schemes. It is unclear if beneficiary farmers, who wish to lease their lands to tenant farmers or keep their lands fallow for some time, are eligible to receive cash benefits.
• Coverage : According to the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census, around 40% of rural households are landless and depend on manual labour. The scheme does not include landless farmers - tenants, sharecroppers etc. In the regions of high tenancy, the absentee landlords will receive greater benefits under the scheme.
• Many Adivasi communities also cultivate land as community farmers & without individual rights, and may be left out of the scheme, although they are among the most vulnerable.