PM-Kisan grows from strength to strength amid calls for raising the amount

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets set to distribute the 13th installment of PM-Kisan in the next few months, a call has emanated from various quarters, including the RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), to raise the disbursal under the flagship government scheme from the existing Rs 6,000 per annum to cover a significant portion of the ancillary expenses.

Since the start in 2019, according to official records, PM-Kisan has provided income support equivalent to over Rs 200,000 crore to India's eligible farmers who, based on the scheme's record, vary between 9.2 crore to 10.5 crore in each of the 11 installments distributed so far.

For the April-to-July 2022 installment  (11th overall), a sum of around Rs 22,500 crore was distributed to over 10.45 crore farmers.

UP, Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were the top five states in terms of number of farmers benefiting from PM-Kisan, according to official records.

In PM-Kisan, the annual eligible amount of Rs 6,000 is distributed in three equal installments of Rs 2,000 each.

The disbursals are attuned to help farmers purchase critical farm inputs such as seeds, pesticides etc.

Though, compared to rise in inflation the quarterly installment might appear meagre, but given that something at this scale has not been attempted so far, makes PM-Kisan perhaps among the world's largest direct benefit transfer scheme.

The state governments have over a period of time attuned their own respective direct benefit transfer schemes with PM-Kisan which has meant farmers getting even more in those states per annum.

For example, in MP, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has topped PM-Kisan with its own Rs 4,000 per annum scheme that makes total transfer to farmers equivalent to Rs 10,000 per annum.

Similarly, the DBT scheme of West Bengal government, the Odisha Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA scheme), and theTelangana Rythu Bandhu programme are in addition to PM-Kisan though in many state government schemes the identification process of beneficiaries (farmers in this case) is much better than PM-Kisan.

While PM-Kisan promises Rs 6,000 per year in three instalments to each “farmer family”, Rythu Bandhu promises Rs 5,000 per acre per season to each “farm land holder”. Odisha, under Kalia, promises Rs 12,500 per year in a single tranche to every “small and marginal farmer” in the state.

The same amount is also given to each landless household for setting up small business units like goatery units etc.

According to a reply given in parliament in the just-concluded session, around 8.42 crore farmers have been given the 12th installment of PM-Kisan which is almost 20 per cent less the number of farmers who got the same in the last 11th installments.

But officials say that it is not that the 20 per cent have fallen off the radar permanently and the delay in payment could be due to glitches in Aadhaar authentication or inadequate documentation and as soon as the glitches are rectified the payment will be made to them.

"It has sometimes happened that PM-Kisan disbursals of three due installments have been paid in one go. It seldom happens that farmers once registered fall off the list,” an official clarified on the drop in numbers.

In the absence of any commensurate abolition or dovetailing of subsidies into PM-Kisan it has so far remained as just another electoral sop without any large economic benefit.

One big problem with most of the DBT schemes including PM-Kisan for farmers is difficulty in identification of tenant farmers.

According to the National Statistical Office's (NSO) ‘Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households’ survey for 2018-19, 17.3 per cent out of the total estimated 101.98 million operational holdings (i.e. farms) in rural India were on leased lands.

While the share of such leased-in lands in the total area used for agricultural production was 13 per cent. In the previous surveys, NSO had pegged the share of leased in holdings at 11.3 per cent and 6.5 per cent respectively.

This clearly means that the share of leased land in India's total estimated operational holdings has been rising over the years, ignoring such a large portion of cultivators from any DBT calculation would be imprudent.

The actual number of tenant holdings or leased holdings is much more as several experts said that most of these leases are oral and do not have recorded details.

Former CACP chairman the late Tajmul Haque showed in a study that almost 57 per cent of the leased land in kharif season and 54 per cent in the rabi season was on short-term leases and did not have tenurial security or stability.

The Centre's PM-Kisan platform and the proposed data stack to be built on that along with KCC details could provide a fair idea and starting point as to who could be the beneficiaries of this DBT transfer of inputs subsidy, but the fact that it represents only those who own land, the process could be highly inadequate.

Tenant Farmers & Telengana’s Rythu Bandhu

A recent study by grassroots organisation Rythu Swarajya Vedika found that only 0.4 per cent of the tenant farmers received a share of the much-vaunted Rythu Bandhu income support of the Telangana government from the landlords.

And just 1 per cent received compensation for crop damage though 77 per cent of them suffered some sort of damage in the last three years.

The report was prepared after an extensive door-to-door survey of over 7,744 farmers spread across 34 villages in 20 districts of Telangana.

The report also found that only 5 per cent of the tenant farmers had received Loan Eligibility Card under the 2011 Licensed Cultivators Act of the state government and just around 44 per cent could sell their crop at MSP as procurement is tied to land ownership as with most other places.

The social composition of the tenant farmers found that an overwhelming number of those surveyed almost 61 per cent belonged to the backward castes while scheduled castes were in second place at 22.9 per cent. Scheduled Tribes were in third position at 9.7 per cent, followed by other castes and minorities, the report found.