Madras Agricultural Journal
Loading.. Please wait
Research Article | Open Access | Peer Review

Performance of PMKISAN scheme in India with Special Reference to Tamil Nadu – An insight into Distribution

Volume : 112
Issue: March(1-3)
Pages: 28 - 35
Downloads: 0
Published: April 15, 2025
Download

Abstract


Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme is an income support scheme implemented by the Government of India to help farmers at the time of cultivation for the purchase of agricultural inputs. Cash transfer programme positively impacts, increasing the consumption pattern, nutritional status and eliminating rural poverty. The study analyzed the performance and progress of the state under the PMKISAN scheme and also estimated the proportion of income to the total annual income of the households. The results indicate that large share of beneficiary belong to Uttar Pradesh (20.82 percent), followed by Maharashtra (8.98 percent) and Madhya Pradesh (7.08 percent) and in case of Tamil Nadu, districts like Villupuram, Tiruvannamalai, Salem and Cuddalore have the highest beneficiaries. The lowest share was observed in states like Goa, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry, etc.; the reason for the lesser registration of beneficiaries might be due to problems with the land documents of farmers, i.e., mismatching of names. The results also found that it has positive impact on redistribution of income to small and marginal farmers where the income share to their annual income is higher in all the districts of Tamil Nadu. Digitization of land records and other information would help increase the number of beneficiaries among the states which has a lesser share.

DOI
Pages
28 - 35
Creative Commons
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords


PMKISAN Cash transfer Universal basic income

Introduction


Agriculture plays a major role in the economic growth of developing countries like India. With the increase in global population and demand for food supply, agricultural land is under pressure to meet global demand through increasing productivity. With reduction in agricultural land area, adoption of modern technologies, tools and high yielding varieties are at greater need to increase productivity which also require huge capital investment by the farmers. In India, about 146 million rural households have operational land holdings and 86.08 percent of farmers have marginal and small land holdings (Agricultural census, 2015) whose income is less than the poverty line. About 57.8 percent of rural households depend on agriculture as the primary source of income (Situation Assessment Survey, NSO 2021). With slow pace of structural transformation in agricultural sector, the income level of the rural households is lesser and there exists a wider gap between income of rural and urban households. Policy makers and government institutions are involved in boosting the rural economy by implementing various schemes and subsidy programmes to the farmers. Some of the predominant schemes are Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY), Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) and Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PMKISAN). The total budget allocation by the Government of India during 2021-22 to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare (MoAFW) was Rs. 1,31,531 crore which is 14 percent higher when compared to previous year budget. Among the total budget, around 76 percent of the budget is proposed for PM-KISAN, PMFBY and interest subsidy on short-term credit. PMFBY was implemented to provide insurance coverage and financial support to the farmers in the event of crop failure due to natural calamities. The scheme was compulsory for loanee farmers but made optional from kharif 2020 and voluntary for non-loanee farmers (Tiwari et al. 2020). PM-KISAN is a direct cash transfer scheme initiated to increase the livelihood status of small and marginal farmers. It aims at providing social security to all small and marginal farmers in the country through supplementing the financial needs of the farmers in procuring various inputs like seeds, fertilisers etc., and also to protect the farmers from the usurious moneylenders for meeting such expenses. This would provide liquidity to the farm households to meet their expenditure and it helps in boosting demand in rural economy. A sum of Rs. 6000/- is given in three intervals in a year before the crop seasons (Kharif, rabi and summer) and are credited through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode. So far 7 instalments have been released and 3.76 crore (33 percent of registered) farmers received all the 7 instalments and 10.69 crore (93 percent of registered) farmers received at least one instalment. Over 12 crore registered farmers have been benefiting from this scheme. The Government spending towards this scheme has increased in successive years. Since, implementation the budget has increased from Rs. 20,000 crores in 2018-19 to Rs. 65,000 crores during 2021-22 which is 49 percent of the total budget allotted to MoAFW. A number of similar schemes has been formulated by many state governments, initially by Telangana state called the Rythu Bandhu scheme where Rs. 8000/- is provided to farm households in two instalments to supplement income of the farmers. Large number of studies (Taaffe et al. 2017, Kusuma et al. 2017, Chioda et al. 2016, Aizer et al. 2016) discusses the effectiveness of cash transfer programmes and indicates that there is a positive effect of the programmes on increasing the consumption level, education, nutritional status etc. The successive rate of programme also depend on the condition or environment under which it is provided and it also depends on the traceability of the whether it has reached the beneficiary or not. Hence, this study focuses on analysing the progress and performance of PM-Kisan scheme in districts of Tamil Nadu as well as the share of PM-Kisan scheme in total annual income of the households.   

Methodology


The present study is based on the secondary data, the state wise number of beneficiary registered and government expenditure on PM-Kisan scheme was compiled from http://www.pmkisan.gov.in. The data pertaining to operational holdings was collected from agriculture census (2011) and the household income of farmers was compiled from the Situation Assessment Survey (2019). The performance of states and districts of Tamil Nadu was studied in terms of proportion of beneficiary to the potential beneficiary i.e., number of operational holdings in each state and district. The income share from the scheme has also been studied for each district. Since the proportion of income for each land holding category is different, the income share from the scheme has been studied separately for each land holding category.

Results Discussion


State wise progress of PMKISAN

The state wise number of beneficiaries registered under the PM-Kisan scheme is presented in table 1. The total number of farmers registered under the scheme as on 30th March, 2022 is 125 million. The highest number of beneficiary is registered in Uttar Pradesh 26.11 lakhs (20.82 percent), followed by Maharashtra 11.27 lakhs (8.98 percent), Madhya Pradesh 8.88 lakhs (7.08 percent), Bihar 8.35 lakhs (6.66 percent), Rajasthan 7.82 lakhs (6.24 percent), Gujarat 6.42 lakhs (5.12 percent), Andhra Pradesh 5.65 lakhs (4.51 percent), Karnataka 5.07 lakhs (4.05 percent), West Bengal 4.82 lakhs (3.84 percent) and Tamil Nadu 4.75 lakhs (3.79 percent). Among the major states Haryana (1.56 percent), Jammu and Kashmir (0.97 percent), Himachal Pradesh (0.79 percent) and Uttarakhand (0.74 percent) ranks lowest with less than 20 lakhs of beneficiary registration. The Union Territories and small states like Goa (0.01 percent), Lakshadweep (0.00 percent), Delhi (0.01 percent), Puducherry (0.01 percent) and Chandigarh 90.00 percent) have less than 20,000 beneficiary.

Performance of states with respect to PMKISAN

The performance of states were estimated using the operational land holding data taken from agriculture census 2015-16 and the data for 2020-2021 was projected by epolate function in STATA using the agriculture census data from 1995-96 to 2015-16. The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare also considers the state wise operational land holding to identify the number of farmers to be covered under the scheme. Hence, Operational land holdings is considered as a proxy for the identifying the potential beneficiary.The results indicate that the states like Manipur (317.47 percent), Mizoram (214.06 percent), Punjab (206.17 percent), Andhra Pradesh (146 percent), Andaman and Nicobar Island (142.81 percent), Haryana (119.42 percent), Assam (115.35 percent) and other states like Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh has a greater number of beneficiary than the potential beneficiary (operational land holding). Many of the North Eastern States like Manipur has community-based land ownership, it might not be possible to assess the quantum of Land holder farmers. Similarly, many of the land holding is owned jointly in many of the states where the families having land under joint ownership is also considered to be owner of the land and is permitted to avail the benefit (Kavitha et al. 2020). States like Assam, Punjab and Haryana have more beneficiary than potential, it may be due to faulty identification of beneficiaries for which the states are reverifying the list. But this may be also due to reverse tenancy i.e., small and marginal lease out lands to large farmers. The states like Nagaland (96.73 percent), Himachal Pradesh (95.46 percent), Rajasthan (92.93 percent), Chhattisgarh (90.36 percent), Jammu and Kashmir (87.56 percent) have more than 85 percent of potential beneficiaries. The states like Goa (16.09 percent), Sikkim (19.52 percent), Lakshadweep (26.86 percent) and Puducherry (32.47 percent) account for less than 40 percent of potential beneficiaries. The reason for less beneficiary may be due to states that have not completely digitised the land records, document problems, farmers themselves have not enrolled for the scheme and in some of the north eastern states identification of beneficiary itself has been a major problem due to community based ownership. In Kerala more than 40,000 farmers could not receive fourth instalment due to mismatch in the documents (Aadhar card and PMKISAN portal).

 

Table 1. State wise Percentage share of total beneficiary in PM-KISAN over land holding (as on 02nd April, 2022)

State

Total No. of Beneficiaries

Percentage to total no. of beneficiary

Total No. of Operational land holdings

Beneficiary over operational holdings (%)

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

17287

0.01

12105

142.81

Andhra Pradesh

5654077

4.51

3872720

146.00

Arunachal Pradesh

97320

0.08

117208

83.03

Assam

3187456

2.54

2763199

115.35

Bihar

8358711

6.66

16634395

50.25

Chandigarh

465

0.00

782

59.46

Chhattisgarh

3862781

3.08

4275064

90.36

Delhi

17164

0.01

21187

81.01

Goa

11439

0.01

71106

16.09

Gujarat

6422871

5.12

5755642

111.59

Haryana

1956924

1.56

1638719

119.42

Himachal Pradesh

986004

0.79

1032853

95.46

Jammu And Kashmir

1211475

0.97

1383621

87.56

Karnataka

5077565

4.05

9529289

53.28

Kerala

3690226

2.94

8336203

44.27

Lakshadweep

2619

0.00

9749

26.86

Madhya Pradesh

8881953

7.08

11133893

79.77

Maharashtra

11271344

8.98

16871913

66.81

Manipur

477316

0.38

150348

317.47

Meghalaya

198351

0.16

255233

77.71

Mizoram

187664

0.15

87668

214.06

Nagaland

207628

0.17

214653

96.73

Odisha

3760292

3.00

5064234

74.25

Puducherry

11186

0.01

34452

32.47

Punjab

2341709

1.87

1132872

206.71

Rajasthan

7825342

6.24

8420796

92.93

Sikkim

13298

0.01

68136

19.52

Tamil Nadu

4752765

3.79

7757670

61.27

Tripura

242270

0.19

567909

42.66

Uttar Pradesh

26118219

20.82

24317794

107.40

Uttarakhand

932094

0.74

849960

109.66

West Bengal

4822697

3.84

7362117

65.51

Data source: http://pmkisan.gov.in; http://agcensus.dacnet.nic.in/

Authors Calculation

District wise progress of PMKISAN in Tamil Nadu

            In Tamil Nadu, the total number of beneficiary registered in the scheme was around 4.75 lakhs. District wise total number of beneficiary registered in PM-Kisan scheme is shown in table 2. It is observed that highest number of beneficiary were registered in Villupuram district 5.27 lakhs (11.10 percent), followed by Tiruvannamalai 4.04 lakhs (8.51 percent), Salem 2.79 lakhs (5.88 percent), Cuddalore 2.65 lakhs (5.59 percent), Vellore 2.54 lakhs (5.36 percent), Dharmapuri 2.17 lakhs (4.57 percent). The lowest number of beneficiary registered in the scheme was estimated and districts like Thoothukudi, Perambalur, Thiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Nilgiris and Theni has less than 2 percent share in total number of beneficiaries registered for availing the benefit.

Performance of districts in Tamil Nadu with respect to PMKISAN

               The district wise performance of PMKISAN scheme in Tamil Nadu was estimated by percentage analysis of registered beneficiary and potential beneficiary and is presented in table 2. The districts like Pudukkottai (99.98 percent), Tiruvallur (97.38 percent), Kancheepuram (95.4 percent), Sivagangai (90.06 percent), Tiruvannamalai (89.79 percent) has more than 85 percent of registered beneficiary when compared to the potential beneficiaries. Some of the districts like Pudukkottai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram has large number of joint holding ownership (Agriculture Census, 2015) which could be the reason for higher beneficiaries since identification itself is a major problem. More than half of the districts in Tamil Nadu fall under the range of 50 to 85 percent indicating that two third of farmers have registered under the scheme. Only two districts Theni (39.68 percent) and Tirunelveli (36.05 percent) has less than 40 percentage of beneficiary registered for the scheme.  The percentage share of cash transfer in total annual income of household was calculated. The data pertaining to average annual income of agricultural households was compiled from the Situation Assessment Survey (2019). District wise annual income was estimated for each landholding category and the percentage share of cash transfer to annual income was presented in table 3. The results indicate that the share of cash transfer to annual income was higher for marginal and small landholding farmer than semi-medium and medium class farmers as shown in fig 2. Similar results were found (Kavitha et al. 2020) where state wise income share has been estimated. Districts like Tirupur (16.76 percent), Tiruvannamalai (15.44 percent), Dindigul (15.26 percent), Perambalur (14.43 percent) and Vellore (13.74 percent) has the highest percentage share of cash transfer to total annual income indicating that the income level of the household is lesser compared to other districts of Tamil Nadu. Similarly, districts like Thanjavur (9.26 percent), Tiruvallur (8.74 percent), Coimbatore (8.46) and Thiruvarur (6.82 percent) has lesser share to the total income of the households.

 Table 2. District wise Percentage share of total beneficiary in PM-KISAN over land holding in Tamil Nadu (as on 02nd April, 2022)

District

Total No. of Beneficiaries

Percentage to total no. of beneficiary

Total No. of Operational land holdings

Beneficiary over operational holdings (%)

Ariyalur

111892

2.35

175125

63.89

Coimbatore

66975

1.41

128377

52.17

Cuddalore

265905

5.59

347476

76.52

Dharmapuri

217215

4.57

374124

58.06

Dindigul

138943

2.92

300733

46.20

Erode

100178

2.11

194388

51.54

Kancheepuram

190784

4.01

199987

95.40

Kanyakumari

213101

4.48

517678

41.16

Karur

77546

1.63

113797

68.14

Krishnagiri

172337

3.63

368689

46.74

Madurai

140158

2.95

228158

61.43

Nagapattinam

60740

1.28

115160

52.74

Namakal

92885

1.95

204402

45.44

Perambalur

76908

1.62

173055

44.44

Pudukkottai

139964

2.94

139998

99.98

Ramanathapuram

123323

2.59

277254

44.48

Salem

279533

5.88

344691

81.10

Sivagangai

111208

2.34

123484

90.06

Thanjavur

127147

2.68

267984

47.45

The Nilgiris

50000

1.05

101881

49.08

Theni

48521

1.02

122284

39.68

Thriuvarur

61956

1.30

119831

51.70

Trichy

162671

3.42

309066

52.63

Tirunelveli

108938

2.29

302203

36.05

Tiruppur

96999

2.04

174706

55.52

Tiruvallur

158629

3.34

162895

99.98

Tiruvannamalai

404421

8.51

450413

89.79

Tuticorin

82668

1.74

157277

52.56

Vellore

254530

5.36

363501

70.02

Villupuram

527325

11.10

790519

66.71

Virudhunagar

89265

1.88

159169

56.08

Data source: http://pmkisan.gov.in; http://agcensus.dacnet.nic.in/

Authors Calculation

 Fig 2. Top 10 district with highest number of beneficiary

Table 3. District wise share of PMKISAN in annual income of household

District

Annual Income of household

% of total income

Marginal

Small

Semi-Medium

Medium

Marginal

Small

Semi-Medium

Medium

Thiruvallur

68624

72289

61763

320000

8.74

8.3

9.71

1.88

Kancheepuram

60233

70929

56539

73456

9.96

8.46

10.61

8.17

Vellore

43674

55049

46933

59325

13.74

10.9

12.78

10.11

Tiruvannamalai

38870

50359

45120

53658

15.44

11.91

13.3

11.18

Viluppuram

49290

30030

76827

142778

12.17

19.98

7.81

4.2

Salem

47171

66762

67562

70321

12.72

8.99

8.88

8.53

Namakkal

55953

65280

98499

158335

10.72

9.19

6.09

3.79

Perambalur

41594

56938

65660

68520

14.43

10.54

9.14

8.76

The Nilgiris

49218

57550

63723

65675

12.19

10.43

9.42

9.14

Dindigul

39313

52844

44216

68000

15.26

11.35

13.57

8.82

Karur

55832

69607

57509

94160

10.75

8.62

10.43

6.37

Trichy

52517

76029

70876

77830

11.42

7.89

8.47

7.71

Erode

44643

40717

42084

69750

13.44

14.74

14.26

8.6

Ariyalur

45479

27450

48288

51100

13.19

21.86

12.43

11.74

Cuddalore

50488

53179

74899

156889

11.88

11.28

8.01

3.82

Nagapattinam

73910

139532

114457

145980

8.12

4.3

5.24

4.11

Thiruvarur

88022

40800

82200

189833

6.82

14.71

7.3

3.16

Thanjavur

64803

56491

57198

105710

9.26

10.62

10.49

5.68

Pudukkottai

47786

42936

50806

74245

12.56

13.97

11.81

8.28

Sivagangai

62686

76673

102646

118057

9.57

7.83

5.85

5.08

Madurai

43680

41408

68044

96688

13.74

14.49

8.82

6.21

Theni

54973

59780

62154

114250

10.91

10.04

9.65

5.25

Virudhunagar

51230

75078

93671

93758

11.71

7.99

6.41

6.4

Ramanathapuram

45939

48122

62104

63630

13.06

12.47

9.66

9.73

Thoothukudi

48701

46386

68000

59300

12.32

12.93

8.82

10.12

Tirunelveli

48280

34204

45031

70500

12.43

17.54

13.32

8.51

Kanniyakumari

51283

126000

237333

198000

11.7

4.76

2.53

3.03

Dharmapuri

55348

37622

55833

76961

10.84

15.95

10.75

7.8

Krishnagiri

45875

49318

56853

68835

13.08

12.17

10.55

8.72

Coimbatore

70912

77825

82456

120120

8.46

7.71

7.28

5

Tiruppur

35791

79288

86685

92215

16.76

7.57

6.92

6.51

Source: authors calculation

 

Fig 3. Share of PMKISAN in Annual income of the farm household

    Source: authors calculation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion


PM-KISAN direct cash transfer scheme implemented by the Government of India to provide income support to the farmers at the time of crop production in three intervals to ease the liquidity constraints in procuring the agricultural inputs. The scheme is provided invariably to all the farmers. The total registered beneficiary under this scheme has been increasing largely over the years. The states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu has the highest share of beneficiary where the agriculture has been carried out performantly. Whereas in Tamil Nadu, districts like Villupuram, Tiruvannamalai, Salem, Cuddalore has highest beneficiary rather than agriculture based districts like Thanjavur, Thiruvarur etc., The state wise performance indicate that states like Manipur, Mizoram has more beneficiary than potential beneficiary which may be due to community based, joint ownership based landholding which is difficult to assess the quantum of land holding. The another important aspects contributing to lowest number of beneficiaries is farmers’ problems with their land documents. In Tamil Nadu, about two third of farmers have registered and availed at least one instalment expect in districts like Theni and Tirunelveli where the total beneficiary is less than 40 percent to total registered beneficiary. The scheme has important impact on redistribution of income to small and marginal farmers where the income share to the their annual income is higher in all the districts. It is therefore suggested that states with less beneficiary can be concentrated to increase the beneficiary through digitization of land records and other related documents. This would reduce the mismatching of documents and also help in easy identification of beneficiaries in many states. 

Acknowledgements 

I thank Indian Council of Social Science Research for providing financial assistance for the research work under ICSSR Centrally Administered Full-Term Doctoral Fellowship. 

Cite This Article


APA Style

P. Jagadeshwaran, K.R. Ashok, A. Vidhyavathi, M. Nirmala Devi , M. Prahadeeswaran.Performance of PMKISAN scheme in India with Special Reference to Tamil Nadu – An insight into Distribution.Madras Agricultural Journal.112(1-3):28-35

 

Author Information

P. Jagadeshwaran&nbsp

Contact Email

K.R. Ashok &nbsp

Contact Email

A. Vidhyavathi &nbsp

Contact Email

M. Nirmala Devi &nbsp

Contact Email

M. Prahadeeswaran &nbsp

Contact Email

No figure image available.

No figure image available.

No figure image available.

No figure image available.

No table image available.

No table image available.

No table image available.

No table image available.

footer

Copyright © Madras Agricultural Journal | Masu Journal All rights reserved.