Why PM Kisan Scheme is Game Changer for the Indian Economy?

Let us understand why and how PM Kisan yojana has become a Game Changer for the Indian Economy. There were always heated arguments in the media and amongst the people on the subject matter. Thus, any scheme that is brought for farmers was said to be only on the papers and there was no benefit to the farmers. However, the below figures and broad explanation will change this perspective among the people. So let us see how it was implemented and where it has reached now.

About the History of PM Kisan Scheme

PM Kisan Yojana is a central Government scheme to meet the financial needs of landholding farmers. A financial benefit of Rs. 6000 rupees is transferred to the bank accounts of farmer families every year through direct benefit transfer. Certain categories of high economic status are excluded from the scheme.

PM Kisan Yojana’ Reach in 2022

This ambitious scheme was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on 24th February 2019 and is one of the largest DBT schemes in the world. Thus, this scheme has been successful in reaching crores of farmers, with no middlemen involved.

Further, by maintaining complete transparency in the beneficiary registration and verification process, the Government of India has been able to transfer benefits within minutes of pressing a button by the Hon’ble Prime Minister during mass release events.

Thus, the release of benefits for any installment period under PM KISAN has now crossed 10 crore farmers from 3.16 crore in the first installment – ​​a 3-fold increase in 3 years.

PM KISAN in more than 3 years has successfully raised more than. 2 lakh crores and helped crores of needy farmers. Of this amount, more than 1.6 crores have been transferred since the lockdown due to the Covid pandemic.

PM Kisan is an evolving scheme. The scheme was launched with farmer eligibility determined on self-certification by each farmer. Further Improvements have been made over time in the way farmers are registered and verified by the states.

Credit for the Success

The success of the scheme lies in the improvements introduced over time for the verification and validation of farmers’ details. Mandatory fields have been introduced from the beginning for first-level checks. Thus, after checking and verifying the data of eligible farmers by the states, it is updated on the PM Kisan portal. Thereafter it is forwarded to PFMS for verification of financial details.

Similarly, it was sent to UIDAI servers for Aadhaar authentication and to the Income Tax Server to check the income taxpayer’s status. Also, it is to verify the Aadhaar seeding of bank accounts to NPCI. This has enabled the government to continuously validate and verify existing and new beneficiaries.

Why called Game Changer?

The PM KISAN yojana is an important change in the nature of government support to farmers in India. Also, it is an example of good governance and the use of digital public goods to reach citizens.

So, taking the advantage of the widespread use of digital technology in the implementation of PM KISAN, the government has taken steps to create a digital ecosystem for agriculture or agricultural stacks. It will be another digital public good in the agriculture sector, using PM Kisan data as the basis for a federated farmer database maintained by states.

The building of agricultural stacks at the village level also provides the government with an opportunity to saturate the PM Kisan scheme with all eligible farmers and re-verify all existing beneficiaries as per the operational guidelines of the scheme.

Thus the land details of the existing beneficiaries are being seeded as per the land records of the states so that dynamic linkage with digital land records of the states is ensured smoothly in the future.

To bring more transparency to the scheme, the Ministry of Agriculture has also introduced payments using the e-KYC of farmers and the Aadhaar Payment Bridge (APB). The exercise will also help in weeding out farmers who have passed away and sold their land and in the meantime have entered the exclusion criteria prescribed under the scheme.

Statistics and Studies

There are many studies and findings, which show that PM Kisan Yojana has helped farmers to invest productively in agricultural activities. This, through a multiplier effect, has contributed to the overall improvement of the agricultural sector.

For example, a pilot study conducted by ICAR in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) found that the scheme has greatly enabled farmers to overcome liquidity constraints to purchase agricultural inputs. Further, for small and marginal landholding farmers, this has helped them not only in their need for funds for farm inputs but also for their daily consumption, education, health, and other incidental expenses.

Indeed, PM KISAN has been a game changer in directly reaching the farmers of the country every four months and in their time of need.

FAQ on PM Kisan beneficiaries