21st instalment of PM-Kisan scheme credited to over nine crore farmers

The government on Wednesday released the 21st instalment of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM‑KISAN) scheme, transferring more than ₹18,000 crore into the bank accounts of over nine crore eligible farmers across India. The announcement was made during a ceremony in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, where Narendra Modi released the funds and addressed the gathering at the South India Natural Farming Summit 2025, emphasising that agriculture must increasingly pivot toward natural-farming practices and diversification.

Under PM-KISAN, an eligible farmer family receives ₹6,000 annually, disbursed in three equal instalments of ₹2,000 each. With the release of this 21st tranche, the scheme’s cumulative reach now stands at more than 11 crore farmer families and funds totalling in excess of ₹3.70 lakh crore.

In his address in Coimbatore, Prime Minister Modi also stressed the “one acre, one season” challenge for natural farming, urging farmers to experiment with ecological and low-input methods on a unit scale before scaling up. He described this instalment not just as a cash transfer but as part of a broader transformation in Indian agriculture — aligning soil health, climate-resilience, farmers’ income and market readiness.

The release of the instalment comes ahead of important state-level disbursement ceremonies, with many regional governments urging farmers to update e-KYC, land-seed-linking and mobile-number linkage to ensure seamless crediting of funds. Some states have reported procedural bottlenecks, including issues with farmer IDs and data linkage, which authorities are working to resolve ahead of the next instalment cycle.

The government has positioned the 21st instalment as part of a comprehensive farmer-support ecosystem, which includes natural-farming promotion, value-chain linkages, crop-diversification incentives and market integration through platforms such as e-NAM. With this release, the focus now shifts to onward flow of funds, improved targeting, database cleansing and alignment with state-level agriculture reforms.