Direct Benefit Transfer schemes like PM-KISAN have transformed India's welfare delivery architecture. Critically examine their impact on farmer income security and the challenges of targeting and exclusion errors.

Launched in February 2019, PM-KISAN transfers ₹6,000 per year in three instalments of ₹2,000 into Aadhaar-seeded accounts of landholding farmer families [1]. As a 100% Central Sector scheme now extended to 2030-31 with a ₹3.15 lakh crore outlay [2], it marks welfare delivery's shift from subsidy-in-kind to direct, verifiable income transfer — though its income-security gains remain partial.

Gains for farmer income security

• Scale and reach: over ₹4.27 lakh crore disbursed by the 22nd instalment, covering 9.32 crore farmers — among the world's largest DBT programmes [1].
• Productive use: NITI Aayog's DMEO evaluation found over 92% of beneficiaries used the amount for agricultural activities and investment [2], easing dependence on high-cost informal credit for seeds and fertilizer.
• Predictability: multi-year Cabinet approval gives fiscal certainty over annual re-sanctioning, aiding farmers' input planning [2].
• Gender inclusion: women farmers have received over ₹1.06 lakh crore; nearly one in four beneficiaries is a woman [2].

Targeting and exclusion challenges

• Inclusion errors: benefits reached income-tax payers, government employees and pensioners; ₹416.75 crore has been recovered from ineligible beneficiaries [3].
• Exclusion by design: eligibility rests on cultivable landholding, leaving out tenant farmers, sharecroppers and landless agricultural labourers — the most income-insecure group [3].
• Digital-administrative barriers: mandatory e-KYC, Aadhaar seeding and land-record seeding stopped payments to farmers failing these steps, converting verification safeguards into genuine exclusion [3].
• Adequacy: a flat ₹6,000 is uniform across land sizes and unindexed to input-cost inflation, limiting its cushioning power.

PM-KISAN's plumbing — Aadhaar, PFMS and digitised land records — has demonstrably reduced leakage, but income security demands both accurate targeting and adequate support. Updating land records, enabling tenant-farmer registration through state cultivator databases, and periodic third-party social audits would convert an efficient transfer pipeline into genuine livelihood assurance, advancing SDG-2's zero-hunger and rural-income goals.