Govt efforts to double farmers' income yielded positive results: Minister

Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Tuesday informed Parliament that the government's efforts to double the income of farmers have yielded "very positive" results.

As per the strategy, Tomar said in Lok Sabha that the government has adopted and implemented several policies, reforms, development programmes and schemes for achieving higher income for farmers directly or indirectly.

The government set up an inter-ministerial committee in April 2016 to examine issues relating to the “Doubling of Farmers' Income (DFI)” and recommended strategies to achieve the same.

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The panel submitted its final report to the government in September 2018. It contained the strategy for doubling farmers’ income through various policies, reforms and programmes.

The minister also said that as part of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has released a book that contains a compilation of success stories of 75,000 farmers out of innumerable farmers who have increased their income more than two times, he added.

To another question, the minister said there is no proposal at present to increase the amount under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) from the existing Rs 6,000 per annum per beneficiary.

The PM-KISAN was launched in February 2019 but implemented with effect from December 2018. The government, in the Union budget, has reduced the allocation to PM-KISAN by around Rs 7,000 crore in 2023–24.

Though in 2022-23, the government had allocated Rs 66,825 crore, in the revised budget it was reduced to Rs 60,000 crore. In the 2023 budget, the government maintained a Rs 60,000 crore allocation for the scheme.

Due to the update of beneficiaries' data, the government cut down the allocation, said the official in the Ministry of Agriculture.

The government has earlier asked all PM-KISAN beneficiaries to make KYC to prevent duplication. With this, the number of beneficiaries also reduced.

As of January 30 this year, more than Rs 2.24 lakh crore have been disbursed to eligible farmers.