A scheme that has quietly reshaped the economic floor for millions of Indian farming families just got a decade-long runway. Union Food Processing Minister Chirag Paswan announced on Friday, July 31, 2026, that the Union Cabinet has approved the continuation of the PM-KISAN scheme through 2030–31, backed by a fresh outlay of ₹3.15 lakh crore.

PM-KISAN's ₹4.47 lakh crore journey so far

Launched in February 2019, the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi was built on a single, powerful idea: put cash directly in the farmer's hand, no middleman, no leakage. Under the scheme, eligible landholding farmer families receive ₹6,000 per year in three equal instalments, transferred straight to their bank accounts via Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

The numbers tell the story of scale. Paswan noted that more than ₹4.47 lakh crore has already been transferred to farmers' accounts since the scheme's inception — a cumulative direct-cash injection into rural India that few welfare programmes in the country's history can match.

What the Cabinet's extension signals for rural India

The Cabinet's decision to extend PM-KISAN to 2030–31 is not merely an administrative renewal. It is a signal of policy predictability — something rural households, whose incomes swing with monsoons and market prices, have historically lacked. The ₹3.15 lakh crore provision locks in a financial commitment across five more years of instalments.

Paswan framed the decision as advancing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'kisan-hitaishi vision' — farmer-welfare vision — connecting the Cabinet move to a broader government emphasis on direct transfers as the backbone of agricultural support. The primary beneficiaries remain small and marginal farmers, the segment most exposed to income volatility and least served by traditional credit and subsidy pipelines.

DBT as the government's preferred policy instrument

Since 2014, direct benefit transfers have become the central government's preferred tool for welfare delivery — cutting out intermediaries and, in theory, reducing leakage. PM-KISAN is among the largest and most visible DBT programmes in operation. Its extension through 2031 effectively cements DBT as a long-term structural feature of India's agricultural policy, not a transitional measure.

What to watch next: Parliamentary approval for the extended outlay and how the phased release of instalments is built into successive Union Budgets will be the real test of the commitment behind today's announcement.

For India's farmers, the message from the Cabinet is clear — the floor holds, and it holds for five more years.