PM-Kisan 24th Instalment: ₹18,690 Cr Released to 9.34 Cr Farmers
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
Over 9.34 crore farmer families across India received a direct transfer of more than ₹18,690 crore in their bank accounts on Friday, 30 October 2026 — the 24th instalment of the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, disbursed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat welcomed the transfer, noting that farmer families in his Puri Lok Sabha constituency in Odisha were among those who received the benefit.
What the 24th Instalment Means for India's Farmers
Posting on X in Hindi, Minister Shekhawat described the disbursement as a demonstration of the Prime Minister's 'continuous economic support' — निरंतर आर्थिक संबल — to the nation's Annadata ('food providers'). He expressed gratitude on behalf of all farmer brothers and sisters of the Puri constituency and extended congratulations to every beneficiary family.
The PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, launched in February 2019, is a central sector programme that delivers a fixed annual income support of ₹6,000 per farmer family, paid in three equal instalments of ₹2,000 each directly into bank accounts through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mechanism — bypassing intermediaries entirely.
PM-Kisan's Seven-Year DBT Architecture
Since its launch, PM-Kisan has become one of the largest direct income-support programmes for agriculture globally, with the DBT architecture designed to reduce leakages and ensure last-mile delivery to landholding farmer families. Each instalment cycle triggers verification of beneficiary lists, Aadhaar seeding, and land-record linkages — a process that has refined the rolls over successive tranches.
The scheme's cumulative disbursements have grown substantially with each instalment, reflecting both an expanding beneficiary base and periodic government reviews of eligibility criteria. Shekhawat's post underscores how individual Members of Parliament have used each instalment announcement as an opportunity to communicate welfare delivery to their constituencies directly.
Puri Constituency in Focus
Shekhawat serves as the BJP MP from Jodhpur, Rajasthan, but his post specifically references Puri — a Lok Sabha seat in coastal Odisha — as the constituency whose farmers he is celebrating on behalf of. The acknowledgement signals the BJP's cross-state political outreach around the scheme's instalment cycle, using welfare delivery moments to build direct links between the central government and rural beneficiaries far beyond a single MP's home turf.
With the 25th instalment and the next Union Budget both on the horizon, farm groups and state governments will be watching whether the annual transfer quantum of ₹6,000 — unchanged since 2019 — is revised upward to reflect inflation and rising input costs.