Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Thursday, 11 June 2026 announced that the state government has disbursed Rs 2,066 crore to more than 51 lakh farmer families under the CM-Kisan Yojana during the 2025-26 financial year, marking a significant expansion of the scheme's reach to previously excluded categories of cultivators.

Context

Posting in Odia on X, Chief Minister Majhi declared: 'Ama annadatanka samruddhi hi amara lakshya' ('The prosperity of our farmers is our goal'). He stated that over 5 lakh new beneficiaries have been added to the scheme, with direct benefits now flowing to small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural families, Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), and urban farming households — categories that were not always covered under earlier frameworks.

The post was accompanied by hashtags marking 12 years of Kisan Samriddhi and two years of the current Odisha government, signalling that the announcement was timed to coincide with the administration's second anniversary in office.

Policy Backdrop

The CM-Kisan Yojana is Odisha's state-level direct income-support scheme for farmer families, functioning alongside the central PM-KISAN programme, which has since 2019 provided an annual transfer of Rs 6,000 to eligible landholding farmers nationwide. Odisha's own farmer-support architecture traces its lineage to the KALIA scheme, launched in 2018 under the previous government, which extended assistance to both cultivators and landless rural households.

When Mohan Charan Majhi led the BJP to power in Odisha in June 2024 — ending 24 years of BJD rule — the new administration repositioned farmer welfare as a flagship priority, aligning state programmes more closely with central direct-benefit-transfer models. The reported expansion to PVTGs and urban farmers reflects a broader trend across Indian states of widening income-support eligibility beyond titled landowners.

Stakeholders and Impact

Agriculture remains the primary livelihood for more than half of Odisha's population, with the state characterised by fragmented smallholdings and significant tribal landholdings. The inclusion of landless agricultural families and PVTG communities addresses a long-standing gap in farm-support policy, where those who till the land without formal title have historically been excluded from income-transfer programmes.

Urban farmers — a smaller but growing category — are also listed as direct beneficiaries, a relatively uncommon inclusion in state farm-welfare schemes. The addition of more than 5 lakh new beneficiaries in a single fiscal year suggests a deliberate effort to broaden the scheme's footprint ahead of the government's two-year mark.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to Odisha's state budget for 2026-27 and whether the expanded beneficiary list will be formalised through a revised scheme notification or legislative session. Any convergence between the CM-Kisan Yojana and the central PM-KISAN framework — including shared beneficiary databases or top-up arrangements — will be closely watched by farm-welfare advocates and opposition legislators. With the government marking two years in office, sustained delivery on the scheme's expanded coverage will be a key benchmark for the Majhi administration's agrarian credibility heading into the next electoral cycle.