Over Rs 4.46 lakh crore transferred directly into farmers' bank accounts — and a fresh outlay of Rs 3.15 lakh crore now approved to keep the momentum going. On Saturday, 1 August 2026, Union Coal and Mines Minister G. Kishan Reddy took to X to champion the scale and ambition of the PM-KISAN scheme, calling it a transformative force in the lives of India's farming families. Posting in Hindi, Reddy wrote: 'माननीय प्रधानमंत्री श्री नरेन्द्र मोदी जी के नेतृत्व में PM-KISAN योजना ने... करोड़ों किसानों के जीवन में बदलाव लाया है' — 'Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the PM-KISAN scheme has brought transformation in the lives of crores of farmers, giving them dignity, security, and financial strength.' He credited the scheme's use of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) as the engine behind that change.

What PM-KISAN Is and How It Works

Launched on 24 February 2019 — announced first in the 2019 Interim Budget — Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is a central sector scheme that delivers an annual income support of Rs 6,000 to eligible landholding farmer families, paid in three instalments of Rs 2,000 directly into their bank accounts. No middlemen. No leakage points. The DBT architecture was specifically designed to route money past the layers of the old subsidy system, which had long been criticised for siphoning benefits before they reached the field. The scheme targets small and marginal farmers — the backbone of India's agrarian economy — who historically lacked the financial cushion to absorb a bad monsoon, a price crash, or a sudden input cost spike.

Rs 3.15 Lakh Crore: The New Outlay and What It Signals

The headline number in Reddy's post is the freshly approved outlay of Rs 3.15 lakh crore. This forward commitment, he argues, is proof of the government's 'unbreakable resolve' — 'अटूट प्रतिबद्धता' — toward the welfare of India's annadata (food providers). Combined with the cumulative disbursement already crossing Rs 4.46 lakh crore, the total fiscal footprint of PM-KISAN is now among the largest of any single direct-transfer welfare programme in the country's history. The DBT model underpinning PM-KISAN has been scaled across dozens of central schemes since 2014, from cooking gas subsidies to scholarship payments, with the stated goal of eliminating ghost beneficiaries and reducing administrative leakage. PM-KISAN sits at the flagship end of that architecture.

Farmer Income Support in a Broader Policy Frame

PM-KISAN does not stand alone. It operates alongside interest subvention on agricultural loans, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana crop insurance scheme, and minimum support price mechanisms — a layered safety net designed to stabilise farm incomes from multiple directions. Reddy's post, tagged #FarmersFirst and #ViksitBharat, frames the scheme squarely within the government's 'Developed India' vision — the idea that rural prosperity is inseparable from national growth. As BJP's Telangana state president, Reddy's amplification of PM-KISAN also carries a political dimension: Telangana has a large agrarian population, and the BJP has been working to deepen its footprint in a state where it has historically played second fiddle. The numbers Reddy cites will face scrutiny — parliamentary questions and budget documents on actual disbursements against the newly approved outlay will be the real test of whether the commitment holds.