News: The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister has approved the “Prime Minister Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana” for a period of six years, beginning with 2025-26 to cover 100 districts.
About Prime Minister Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana (PM DDKY)
- It is a first of its kind scheme, focusing exclusively on agriculture and allied sectors.
- The scheme was first announced in the Union Budget 2025-26.
- The Scheme draws inspiration from NITI Aayog’s Aspirational District Programme.
- Convergence: The Scheme will be implemented through convergence of 36 existing schemes across 11 Departments, other State schemes and local partnerships with the private sector.
- Outlay: Budget documents do not provide a separate allocation for the scheme.
- Objectives: The scheme has five objectives:
- Enhancing agricultural productivity
- Adopting crop diversification and sustainable agriculture practices
- Augmenting post-harvest storage at the panchayat and block level
- Improving irrigation facilities
- Facilitating availability of long-term and short-term credit.
- Implementation of scheme
- Identification of districts: 100 districts will be identified based on three key indicators of low productivity, low cropping intensity, and less credit disbursement.
- Number of districts: The number of districts in each state/UT will be based on the share of Net Cropped Area and operational holdings.
- However, a minimum of 1 district will be selected from each state.
- Planning Committees: The Committees will be formed at District, State and National level for effective planning, implementation and monitoring of the Scheme.
- District Agriculture and Allied Activities Plan will be finalized by the District Dhan Dhaanya Samiti, which will also have progressive farmers as members.
- The District Plans will be aligned to the national goals of crop diversification, conservation of water and soil health, self-sufficiency in agriculture and allied sectors as well as expansion of natural and organic farming.
- Monitoring: Progress of the Scheme in each Dhan-Dhaanya district will be monitored on 117 key Performance Indicators through a dashboard on monthly basis.
