Prime Minister Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana Completes One Year

1. At a Glance

• PMDDKY is a district-centric programme for agriculture and allied sectors. It covers 100 districts that have low productivity, low cropping intensity and low credit disbursement [2].
• It is modelled on NITI Aayog's Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP). It is the first programme of this kind to focus only on agriculture and allied sectors [2][4].
• It brings together (converges) 36 existing schemes across 11 Departments, plus State schemes and local partnerships with the private sector [2][3].
• Why it matters for UPSC: it covers convergence-based governance, cooperative federalism, district-level planning, regional imbalance in agriculture and farm incomes (GS-II and GS-III).

2. Why in the News

• PMDDKY completed one year of implementation on 11 October 2026. The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW) held a commemorative event on 12 October 2026 at the Bharat Ratna C. Subramaniam Auditorium, NASC, PUSA, New Delhi [1].
• More than 370 delegates from States attended, including District Collectors, scientists and progressive farmers [1].
• Best-performing districts: 1st Gaya (Bihar), 2nd Nagaur (Rajasthan), 3rd Umaria (Madhya Pradesh). A further 18 districts were recognised under the scheme's six objectives [1].
• Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Year 1 was about "foundations" and Year 2 must deliver "visible and measurable outcomes" [1].
• He also announced the Khet Bachao Abhiyan, a campaign on soil health and balanced fertiliser use, to run in all States from 22 October to 30 November 2026 [1].

3. Background & Evolution

• Origin: announced in the Union Budget 2025-26 (1 February 2025). The aim was to develop 100 districts with low productivity, moderate cropping intensity and below-average credit, benefiting 1.7 crore farmers [6].
• Rationale: to replicate the ADP's convergence-plus-competition model for agriculture alone [2].
• Milestones:
• 1 February 2025: announced in the Budget [6]
• 16 July 2025: Union Cabinet approved the scheme for 6 years from FY 2025-26 [2]
• 11 October 2025: PM launched it at IARI, New Delhi, together with a pulses self-reliance mission. The combined outlay of the two schemes was ₹35,440 crore, of which PMDDKY accounts for ₹24,000 crore [4][5]
• October 2025: the Agriculture Minister directed time-bound implementation of PMDDKY and the Pulses Mission [7]
• Later in FY 2025-26: a CSR Conclave on using DDKY for farmer prosperity was convened by DA&FW with UNDP India and the Gates Foundation [8]

• 11–12 October 2026: first anniversary review and district rankings [1]

• Predecessor / model: the Aspirational Districts Programme (NITI Aayog) [2].

4. Core Static Facts

Parameter	Fact
Nodal ministry	Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW) [1][2]
Announced	Union Budget 2025-26 [6]
Cabinet approval	16 July 2025 [2]
Launch	11 October 2025, IARI (PUSA), New Delhi, by the PM [4][5]
Duration	6 years, starting FY 2025-26 [2]
Outlay	₹24,000 crore per year [3][4]
Coverage	100 districts [2]
Beneficiaries	About 1.7 crore farmers [3][6]
District selection indicators	(i) low productivity, (ii) low cropping intensity, (iii) less credit disbursement [2]
Allocation among States	Based on each State's share of Net Cropped Area and operational holdings, with at least 1 district in every State [2][3]
Convergence	36 schemes, 11 Departments, plus State schemes and private partnerships [2]
Monitoring	Dashboard updated monthly. 117 KPIs at approval [2]; 121 indicators now in use, with monthly district rankings [1]
Institutional structure	District Dhan-Dhaanya Samiti (prepares the district plan; includes progressive farmers) [1][3]; State Dhan-Dhaanya Samiti [3]; National Executive Committee and National Monitoring Committee [3]; Central Nodal Officers [1]

The six objectives [1][4]:

1. Raise agricultural productivity
2. Promote crop diversification and sustainable practices
3. Increase post-harvest storage
4. Improve irrigation
5. Widen access to short- and long-term credit
6. Improve governance and service delivery

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Economic

• Targets the districts that lag on productivity and credit, so national averages rise by lifting the bottom [2].
• ₹24,000 crore a year is delivered mainly through convergence of existing schemes, which means outcomes depend on how well those schemes are aligned, not only on new money [2][3].
• The minister's Year-2 priorities are high-value agriculture, post-harvest infrastructure, cropping intensity and credit [1].

Administrative / Governance

• District action plans are built around each district's soil, rainfall, cropping pattern, water availability and infrastructure [1].
• A 121-indicator dashboard with monthly rankings applies the ADP model of "competitive federalism" at district level [1].
• The minister called it a whole-of-government effort, pointing to the participation of allied Ministries and Departments [1].

Federal / Cooperative federalism

• Every State gets at least one district, and State schemes are folded into the convergence [2].
• Implementation runs through State Governments, District Collectors and KVKs [1].

Environmental / Sustainability

• Crop diversification and sustainable practices is one of the six objectives [1].
• The Khet Bachao Abhiyan promotes balanced, judicious fertiliser use for soil health [1].
• District examples [1]:
• Banka: Lilawaran Natural Farming Land Revival Model
• Gadchiroli: water conservation and drought resilience

Social / Regional equity

• Targets lagging districts, many of them tribal or rain-fed: Dindori, Dantewada, Alluri Sitharama Raju and Gadchiroli feature in the awards and presentations [1].
• Alluri Sitharama Raju showcased high-value horticulture for income diversification [1].

Partnerships

• CSR participation is being sought through a conclave with UNDP India and the Gates Foundation [8].

6. Recent Developments (last 12–18 months)

• 11 October 2025: PM launched PMDDKY alongside a pulses mission at IARI; combined outlay ₹35,440 crore [4].
• October 2025: the Agriculture Minister directed timely implementation and planned coordination with the 11 Ministries [7].
• FY 2025-26: CSR Conclave with UNDP India and the Gates Foundation on leveraging DDKY [8].
• 2026: PIB explainer "100 Districts in Focus" on DDKY [9].
• 11 October 2026: one year of implementation completed. Monitoring now uses 121 indicators [1].
• 12 October 2026: first anniversary event and awards [1]:
• Overall: Gaya 1st, Nagaur 2nd, Umaria 3rd

• 18 districts recognised across the 6 objectives

• 22 October – 30 November 2026: Khet Bachao Abhiyan in all States [1].

7. Prelims Hooks

• Approved by the Union Cabinet on 16 July 2025 for 6 years starting FY 2025-26 [2].
• Announced in the Union Budget 2025-26 [6].
• Launched by the PM on 11 October 2025 at IARI, New Delhi [4][5].
• Covers 100 districts and about 1.7 crore farmers [3][6].
• Outlay: ₹24,000 crore per year [3][4].
• Converges 36 schemes of 11 Departments [2].
• Districts are chosen on three indicators: low productivity, low cropping intensity and low credit disbursement [2].
• Each State has at least one district. The share depends on Net Cropped Area and operational holdings [2].
• Inspired by NITI Aayog's Aspirational Districts Programme. It is the first such programme exclusively for agriculture [2].
• The district plan is prepared by the District Dhan-Dhaanya Samiti [1][3].
• Performance is tracked on a monthly dashboard of 121 indicators (117 KPIs at approval) [1][2].
• Top district in Year 1: Gaya (Bihar), followed by Nagaur (Rajasthan) and Umaria (MP) [1].
• Khet Bachao Abhiyan (22 October – 30 November 2026) is about soil health and balanced fertiliser use [1].
• Banka (Bihar) showcased the Lilawaran Natural Farming Land Revival Model [1].

8. Is ₹24,000 Crore a Year Really New Money?

• Most of the money already sits inside other schemes
• PMDDKY is run through convergence (joining up schemes that already exist so they reach the same district together) of 36 schemes across 11 Departments [2][3].
• So the ₹24,000 crore a year mostly comes from budgets those 36 schemes already had. The PIB sources do not say how much of it, if any, is fresh money on top [2][3].

• Why it matters: if the money is not new, any gain must come from better targeting and joined-up delivery. That is much harder to check than "₹X crore spent".

• The credit objective got no extra subsidy money

• Cheap farm loans through the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) are paid for by the Modified Interest Subvention Scheme (MISS), which pays part of the interest so farmers borrow at a lower rate.
• MISS got ₹22,600 crore in 2026-27, exactly the same as in 2025-26 [12].

• Low credit is one of the three tests used to pick PMDDKY districts [2]. But the main credit subsidy did not grow when the scheme began. More credit in these districts must therefore come from banks lending more out of the same pool, not from new support.

• New schemes often cannot spend their money in the first years

• Across 2015-16 to 2025-26, the Agriculture Ministry spent about 90% of what it was given [12]. That figure hides how badly new schemes can lag.
• Example: Namo Drone Didi was given ₹677 crore for 2025-26 but was expected to spend only about ₹100 crore [12].
• The minister himself called Year 1 a year of "foundations" [1]. Year-1 rankings therefore measure set-up work, not money reaching farmers.

9. The Model Being Copied Was Weakest in Agriculture

• Under the Aspirational Districts Programme, agriculture improved least
• UNDP's appraisal of the ADP found big gains in health, nutrition and education, but said agriculture and water resources improved only "to a certain extent" [10].
• Assessments hosted by NITI Aayog named agriculture and financial inclusion (bank accounts, loans, insurance) as the main problem areas for most aspirational districts [11][14].

• PMDDKY applies this same model to the exact sector where it did worst [2].

• Why ranking works for schools and clinics but less well for farms

• A district can raise vaccination or school enrolment in a few months through its own staff and camps.
• Farm yields depend on rainfall, soil and markets, and change only once a season. Continued dependence on rain-fed farming (farming with no irrigation, relying only on rain) is a key reason for low productivity [12].

• Under the ADP, districts were so far from their agriculture targets that it was hard even to tell leaders from laggards [11][14].

• Monthly rankings can reward activity more than results

• PMDDKY ranks districts every month on 121 indicators [1].
• Real outcomes such as yield and cropping intensity (how many times the same land is sown in a year) move only season by season. What can move each month is mostly activity: camps held, cards issued, plans uploaded.
• A district can climb the table on activity alone. Gaya topping Year 1 [1] tells us which district built its systems fastest, not yet whose farmers earn more.

10. Why the 100 Districts Are Not the 100 Worst

• A per-State quota sits on top of backwardness
• Districts are picked on low productivity, low cropping intensity and low credit [2].
• But each State's number of districts is decided by its share of Net Cropped Area (total land sown at least once a year) and operational holdings, with at least one district for every State [2].

• So a fairly well-off district in a small State can get in, while a poorer district in a big farming State is left out because that State has used up its quota.

• This is a deliberate trade-off, not a mistake

• The minimum of one per State keeps every State involved, which is good for cooperative federalism (Centre and States working as partners) [2].
• The cost is that the scheme is not purely need-based. A Mains answer should name both sides.

11. The Case for Ranking Districts, and Where It Stops

• The strongest argument for the model
• UNDP called the ADP a catalyst for faster development and recommended copying it in other parts of the world [10][13].
• Ranking makes District Collectors compete, gives them public credit for progress, and pulls scattered schemes into one district plan. PMDDKY's District Dhan-Dhaanya Samiti does exactly this [1][3].

• Before such programmes, no one at district level owned the job of bringing 11 Departments' schemes together. That gap is real, and PMDDKY fills it.

• What the argument gets right

• Convergence costs little new money, and the ADP shows ranking can change how districts work [10].

• Where it stops

• The same evidence shows agriculture was the sector where this push worked least [10][11].
• Ranking can make a district's staff work harder. It cannot bring rain, irrigation canals or bank branches within one year. Those need capital investment from schemes outside the district's control.

12. What Year 2 Must Prove, and Who Should Prove It

• DA&FW should publish where the money comes from, scheme by scheme
• The ₹24,000 crore is spread across 36 schemes [2][3].

• A yearly public table showing how much each scheme spent in the 100 districts, compared with the years before PMDDKY, would show whether convergence added anything.

• DA&FW should order an independent outside review, as was done for the ADP

• The ADP was reviewed by UNDP [10] and assessed through NITI Aayog [11][14]. Those reviews are how we know agriculture lagged.

• PMDDKY needs a similar outside review, with a baseline taken now, before the six-year scheme reaches its midpoint [2].

• Rank on outcomes, not just activity

• The minister asked for "visible and measurable outcomes" in Year 2 [1].

• That means giving more weight in the 121-indicator ranking to seasonal results such as yield, cropping intensity and credit actually disbursed, rather than to monthly process counts [1][2].

• Link the credit objective to credit money

• If low credit is a reason a district was chosen [2], the Department of Financial Services and banks need district-level lending targets. MISS money, flat at ₹22,600 crore [12], cannot raise credit on its own.

13. Anchors for Answers

• Data: The Agriculture Ministry spent about 90% of its allocated funds over 2015-16 to 2025-26, but Namo Drone Didi was expected to spend only about ₹100 crore of its ₹677 crore in 2025-26. New schemes are slow to spend [12]
• Data: The Modified Interest Subvention Scheme (MISS) got ₹22,600 crore in 2026-27, the same as in 2025-26. The credit subsidy did not grow when PMDDKY began [12]
• Report/Committee: UNDP India, Aspirational Districts Programme: An Appraisal (2021). It found big gains in health and education but only partial gains in agriculture and water [10][13]
• Report/Committee: NITI Aayog-hosted assessments of the ADP named agriculture and financial inclusion as the main problem areas [11][14]
• Comparison: Aspirational Districts Programme: same ranking-and-convergence model, applied to many sectors. Its weakest results were in agriculture, the only sector PMDDKY covers [2][10]
• Scheme: Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (₹8,550 crore in 2026-27) includes rain-fed area development. This is the capital spending PMDDKY's irrigation objective depends on [12]

14. Mains Relevance

• GS-III:
• Major crops and cropping patterns; irrigation; storage
• Issues of agricultural credit

• Inclusive growth

• GS-II:

• Government policies and interventions
• Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections
• Federalism

• Role of NITI Aayog-style governance innovations

• Possible question stems: 1. "District-level convergence, rather than new expenditure, is the core innovation of PM Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana." Critically examine. (GS-III, 15 marks) 2. Discuss how the Aspirational Districts model of ranking and competition can be adapted for agriculture. What are its limitations? (GS-II) 3. Low cropping intensity and poor credit access keep some Indian districts agriculturally backward. Evaluate recent policy responses. (GS-III)

15. Related Topics to Study Next

• Aspirational Districts Programme (NITI Aayog): the direct template for PMDDKY [2].
• Self-reliance in Pulses Mission: launched on the same day; together the two make up the ₹35,440 crore package [4].
• Soil Health Card and balanced fertiliser use: linked to the Khet Bachao Abhiyan [1].
• Kisan Credit Card / Modified Interest Subvention Scheme: relevant to the credit objective.
• PM Krishi Sinchayee Yojana: relevant to the irrigation objective.
• Agriculture Infrastructure Fund: relevant to post-harvest storage.
• National Mission on Natural Farming: connects to the Banka model and sustainable practices.
• Krishi Vigyan Kendras: the technical backbone of district action plans [1].

16. NCERT Concepts to Revise

• Aspirational Districts Programme (Geography): PMDDKY copies this NITI Aayog ranking-and-convergence model; its weak agriculture results frame the note's critique.
• Cooperative federalism (Polity): Every State gets at least one district and State schemes are folded in, so Centre and States work as partners.
• Competitive federalism (Polity): Monthly district rankings on 121 indicators apply competition between districts to push better outcomes.
• Cropping intensity (Economy): Low cropping intensity is one of three district selection tests and a key ranking outcome.
• Interest subvention (Economy): The credit objective relies on subsidised farm loans, and flat interest subvention money limits what PMDDKY can do.
• Kisan Credit Card (Economy): KCC is the main channel for cheap farm credit, which links to PMDDKY's low credit disbursement criterion.

17. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Outlay confusion: ₹24,000 crore is PMDDKY's own outlay. ₹11,440 crore is the pulses mission. ₹35,440 crore is the two combined [4].
• Dates:
• Announcement: February 2025 (Budget)
• Cabinet approval: 16 July 2025
• Launch: 11 October 2025

• Do not mix these up [2][4][6].

• KPI count: 117 KPIs at approval [2] versus 121 indicators in 2026 [1]. Read the question's time frame.

• Not run by NITI Aayog: it is only inspired by the ADP. The nodal body is DA&FW, Ministry of Agriculture [1][2].
• Selection indicators: credit disbursement is one of the three indicators. Irrigation is an objective, not a selection criterion [2].