Critically analyze the criteria used for selecting the 100 districts under PM-DDKY. Are productivity, cropping intensity, and credit access sufficient indicators of agricultural backwardness?

Approved by the Cabinet in July 2025, the Prime Minister Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana converges 36 schemes of 11 departments in 100 districts selected on three indicators — low productivity, low cropping intensity and low credit disbursement [1]. These capture the core of agrarian distress, but only partially.

Merits of the chosen criteria

• Objective and measurable: all three rest on routinely published official data, limiting political discretion in district selection [1].
• Causally linked: low cropping intensity signals irrigation gaps, and weak credit flow restricts input use — both feed directly into low yields, which the scheme targets through irrigation and long- and short-term credit [2].
• Federal balance: district numbers per State/UT follow the share of net cropped area and operational holdings, with a minimum of one district per State — preventing concentration in a few large States [1].
• Outcome-anchored: progress is tracked on a dashboard of key performance indicators built around these very parameters, enabling monthly review [3].

Why the three are insufficient

• Output-centric, not income-centric: high yield can coexist with distress where prices, market access or indebtedness are adverse; farm income and mandi density are unmeasured.
• Blind to ecology: groundwater depletion, soil degradation and drought or flood proneness are excluded, so an over-exploited high-yield district appears "advanced" [4].
• Ignores social vulnerability: tenancy, share of small and marginal holdings, tribal and rainfed tracts, and women cultivators find no place.
• Averaging problem: district-level averages mask intra-district pockets of backwardness, especially in large districts.
• Credit as a flawed proxy: disbursement measures supply, not need; a district saturated with formal credit may still face heavy informal borrowing.

The three indicators are a defensible, data-driven starting point but an incomplete definition of backwardness. Widening the index to include farm incomes, rainfed share, groundwater stress and small-holder density — with periodic revision of the district list — would align PM-DDKY with its inspiration, the Aspirational Districts approach, and with SDG-2's promise of leaving no farmer behind.