The government's Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) program, which supports farmers, witnessed a 20% drop in beneficiaries.

The total beneficiary list has come down to 8.12 crore from a peak of 10.47 crore in April-July 2022.

Under the scheme, financial benefit of Rs 6000/- per year is transferred in three equal monthly installments into the bank accounts of farmers’ families through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode.

The decline in beneficiaries has been attributed to the mandatory land seeding provisions and aadhaar linkage, leading to a decrease in annual disbursements. To saturate and cover all eligible beneficiaries by January 2024, Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra was launched in November 2023.

GoI to increase the utilization of the scheme, the government has also developed PM-KISAN mobile app with the feature of face authentication-based e-KYC and Kisan e-Mitra (AI Chatbot), which offers digital assistance in various languages.