The design of PM-KISAN excludes tenant farmers and landless labourers. Suggest reforms to make farm income support more inclusive.

PM-KISAN pays ₹6,000 a year to landholding farmer families whose land records are seeded on the portal. Its 24th instalment (October 2026) reached 9.34 crore farmers [1]. Eligibility depends on who holds the land title, not on who farms the land. So tenants, sharecroppers and landless labourers are excluded by design. That gap can be closed without making claims impossible to check.

Why the design excludes them

• Title-based eligibility: most tenancy is oral. A tenant has no land record, so they cannot qualify however much they farm [1].
• Policy inertia: the Standing Committee on Agriculture (2020) flagged that tenants get no support and asked the Centre to work with States to cover landless farmers [2]. In December 2024, however, the Ministry told the Rajya Sabha there was "no proposal under consideration" [3]. The 2026–31 continuation (₹3.15 lakh crore) showed no change to eligibility [4].
• The government's concern is legitimate: the CAG (Bihar) found that eligibility rested on self-declaration. About ₹62.67 crore went to ineligible people and only ~8% was recovered [5]. Unverified tenant claims would multiply such errors.
• Outcome: absentee owners receive the transfer while the cultivator who pays for seed and fertiliser gets nothing.

Reforms for inclusive income support

• Record tenancies: States should allow written, time-bound leases that protect the owner's title. This removes landlords' fear of losing land and creates a record that can be checked.
• Use AgriStack's farmer registry: link cultivators to plots so that State-verified tenants can be paid. This answers the worry about unverifiable claims [3].
• Phased inclusion: begin with recorded tenants and sharecroppers, as the Standing Committee urged [2]. Expand as tenancy registries mature.
• Landless labourers: a land-linked transfer is the wrong tool for them. Complement PM-KISAN with labour-linked support.
• Verify before paying: run Aadhaar–income-tax matching before payment and penalise false declarations, which the CAG found were never penalised [5]. Wider coverage then stays fiscally clean.
• Centre–State incentives: reward States that build tenancy registries, since States identify and verify beneficiaries [1].

Lease recorded → Registry (AgriStack) → e-KYC + pre-payment checks → DBT to cultivator

Flow: from title-based to cultivator-based support

In short, PM-KISAN's delivery system is efficient, but it pays the wrong unit: the landowner, not the cultivator. Recording tenancies, verifying claims before payment and phasing in coverage can move support to the actual cultivator. That would serve Article 38's goal of reducing inequality and SDG-2's aim of doubling small-producer incomes.