Just ahead of Diwali, farmers across India received a direct cash transfer in their accounts — and in Raipur, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the state's farming community to mark the moment. Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the 24th instalment of the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme from Banaskantha, Gujarat, on Friday, October 30, 2026, in an event watched live at a state-level Kisan Utsav held in the Chhattisgarh capital.

What the 24th instalment means for Chhattisgarh's farmers

CM Sai described the timing as deliberate and consequential. 'Deepawali se pehle mili yeh samman nidhi' — the support received before Diwali — will help farmers meet the immediate costs of seeds, fertilisers, and other cultivation needs, he noted. Under the PM-KISAN framework, eligible landholding farmer families receive ₹6,000 a year in three equal instalments of ₹2,000, transferred directly into their bank accounts. For small and marginal farmers, the pre-festival release functions as both a financial cushion and a symbol of recognition.

The scheme, launched in December 2018 and expanded in 2019 to cover all landholding farmer families irrespective of land size, has now crossed two dozen instalment cycles — a marker of continuity that the BJP frames as institutional commitment rather than one-off relief.

Raipur's Kisan Utsav and the 'double engine' argument

The Raipur event was more than ceremonial. By attending in person, CM Sai underscored Chhattisgarh's alignment with the Centre's flagship agricultural welfare drive — the operating logic the BJP calls its 'double engine sarkar' model: a BJP state government accelerating Centre-sponsored schemes rather than obstructing them. Sai acknowledged PM Modi directly, thanking him on behalf of 'Chhattisgarh ke sabhi annadata parivaron' — all farmer families of the state.

The post frames farmer welfare as a national imperative, not merely a political talking point: 'Kisan kalyan ko rashtra kalyan ka aadhar banane wale' — making farmer welfare the foundation of national welfare. That framing has been central to the BJP's agricultural messaging since PM-KISAN's launch, and the 24th instalment gives it fresh political currency ahead of the festival season.

PM-KISAN's trajectory: from pilot to cornerstone

When the scheme began, the first instalment was released in February 2019, covering a narrower category of small landholders. The 2019 expansion threw the net wider, and cumulative outflows under the scheme now run into hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees directed at rural households. Each instalment cycle is treated by the ruling party as both a governance milestone and a platform for direct communication with the farming electorate.

With Chhattisgarh's agricultural economy heavily dependent on paddy cultivation and a significant share of its population engaged in farming, the state-level Kisan Utsav format gives the state BJP government a visible, recurring touchpoint with its rural base — one that arrives, this time, with the added resonance of Diwali proximity.

Twenty-four instalments in, the question is no longer whether PM-KISAN endures — it is what comes next for farmers still waiting for input costs to fall and crop prices to rise.