Union Coal and Mines Minister and BJP Telangana president G. Kishan Reddy on Thursday, June 11, 2026, launched a social-media thread marking 12 years of agricultural welfare under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, describing India's farmers as 'the backbone of our economy' and crediting the government with empowering them through direct income support, affordable credit, technology, clean energy, and better market access.

Context

Reddy's post, tagged #12YearsOfKisanSamriddhi, is part of a coordinated BJP communication effort marking the completion of 12 years of the Modi government's farm-sector interventions. He referred to farmers by the honorific Annadatas — meaning 'providers of food' — framing their prosperity as central to India's goal of becoming a developed nation, or Viksit Bharat. The thread signals an intent to document specific schemes and outcomes across multiple posts.

The post arrives as the ruling party increasingly ties its agricultural record to the broader Viksit Bharat narrative ahead of future electoral cycles, positioning farm welfare as a pillar of national development rather than a standalone sectoral concern.

Policy Backdrop

The welfare architecture Reddy references spans several flagship schemes. The PM-KISAN direct benefit transfer scheme, launched in February 2019, provides Rs 6,000 per year to eligible farmer families and has reached more than 11 crore farmers nationwide through Aadhaar-linked delivery. The Kisan Credit Card facility offers short-term crop loans at subsidised interest rates and saw coverage extended to additional small farmers in the 2018-19 budgets.

On the clean-energy front, the PM-KUSUM scheme, approved in 2019, targets the installation of 17.5 lakh solar pumps and the solarisation of existing grid-connected pumps, directly reducing diesel dependence for irrigation. Market access has been addressed through e-NAM, an online trading platform connecting mandis across states for better price discovery, operational since 2016. The government had also announced in 2016 a goal of doubling farmers' incomes by 2022 through seven priority areas including irrigation, insurance, and marketing.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries of the policies cited are India's smallholder farmers and rural households, who have historically faced volatile incomes, high input costs, and fragmented market access. Direct transfers under PM-KISAN have provided a predictable income floor, while subsidised credit through the Kisan Credit Card has reduced dependence on informal moneylenders. Solar pump programmes under PM-KUSUM have aimed to lower electricity and diesel costs for irrigation-dependent cultivators.

State governments have been key implementation partners, coordinating beneficiary verification, land-record linkages, and last-mile delivery of scheme benefits. The success of these programmes has varied by state, depending on administrative capacity and the pace of Aadhaar-seeding of land records.

What's Next

Reddy indicated the thread would continue, suggesting further posts will detail specific scheme outcomes and milestones under the #12YearsOfKisanSamriddhi campaign. Analysts and parliamentary committees are expected to scrutinise state-level PM-KISAN and PM-KUSUM disbursement data as the government approaches the next Union Budget. The framing of farm welfare within the Viksit Bharat vision also signals that agricultural policy will remain a central pillar of the BJP's political messaging in the months ahead.