Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the 19th installment of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme on Monday in the Bhagalpur district of Bihar. During the event, over 9.8 crore farmers, including 2.41 crore female ones across the country, will benefit through the 19th installment release, receiving direct financial assistance exceeding Rs 22,000 crore through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

Previously, Prime Minister Modi released the 18th installment of the PM-KISAN scheme on 5th October 2024 in Washim, Maharashtra. The event witnessed over 9.4 crore farmers across the country receiving direct financial benefits, amounting to more than Rs 20,000 crore.

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The PM-KISAN scheme is a Central sector scheme launched in February 2019 by the prime minister to supplement the financial needs of land-holding farmers. Under the scheme, a financial benefit of Rs 6,000 per year is transferred in three equal installments, into the Aadhaar seeded bank accounts of farmers through DBT mode.

Maintaining absolute transparency in registering and verifying beneficiaries, the Centre has disbursed over Rs 3.46 lakh Crore in 18 installments since inception, as of February 2025, according to an Agriculture & Farmers Welfare ministry statement.

With an intent to augment the income of the Small and Marginal Farmers (SMFs), the PM-KISAN scheme aims to supplement the financial needs of the SMFs by procuring various inputs to ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields, commensurate with the anticipated farm income at the end of each crop cycle.

This would also protect them from falling into the clutches of moneylenders to meet such expenses and ensure their continuance in farming activities.

To make the scheme more efficient, effective, and transparent, continuous improvements in a farmer-centric digital infrastructure have been made to ensure the benefits of the scheme reach all the farmers across the country without any middleman involvement.

The PM-KISAN mobile app has been developed with an emphasis on greater transparency and to reach more farmers. The PM-KISAN mobile app serves as a simple and efficient extension to the PM-KISAN web portal. The app was launched with an additional “Face Authentication Feature”, enabling remote farmers to do e-KYC by scanning their face without OTP or fingerprint.

The portal and mobile app offer services like self-registration, benefit status tracking, and facial authentication-based e-KYC. Farmers in remote areas can complete e-KYC via face scans, with provisions to assist neighbours.

Over 5 lakh Common Service Centres (CSCs) have been onboarded to facilitate registrations and meet mandatory requirements. Additionally, a robust grievance redressal system was established on the portal, and an AI chatbot, Kisan-eMitra, provides instant query resolution in local languages regarding payments, registration, and eligibility.

Farmers can also assist 100 other farmers in their neighbourhood to complete e-KYC at their doorstep. In addition, the Union government has also extended the facility for completing the e-KYC of farmers to State Government officials, allowing each official to do an e-KYC for 500 farmers.