Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana

Why in news?

Recently, the Union Cabinet approved the Prime Minister Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana (PMDDKY) which was announced in 2025-26 Union budget.

What is Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana?

• It is a scheme to develop 100 agricultural districts.
• Launched by – Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
• Basis – It is designed on the lines of the Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP).
• 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.
• Beneficiaries – 100 districts with low productivity, moderate crop intensity and below-average credit parameters.
• Budget – Rs.24,000 crore per year.
• Implementation period – 6 years, beginning with the financial year, 2025-26.
• Guidance and capacity building support by – NITI Aayog

How it will be implemented?

• Implementation – It will be implemented through the convergence of 36 existing schemes across 11 Departments, other State schemes, and local partnerships with the private sector.
• Identification of 100 districts - It will be based on 3 key indicators
  • Low productivity
  • Low cropping intensity
  • Less credit disbursement
• The number of districts in each State/Union Territory 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.
• Implementation arm – Committees will be formed at district, State and national levels for effective planning, implementation and monitoring of the scheme.
• A master plan - This will include agriculture and allied activities which will be drawn up for every district.

• Technical knowledge partners – Central and state agriculture universities.
• Monitoring – The progress of the scheme in each Dhan-Dhaanya district will be monitored on a monthly basis on 117 Key Performance Indicators.
• A portal/ dashboard will be developed for this purpose.
  • Central Nodal Officers (CNOs) will be appointed for field visits, review and monitoring.
• Ranking districts – It is based on their performance.

What are the expected outcomes?

• Higher agricultural productivity – It can help in achieving higher agricultural productivity and also can enhance value addition in agriculture and allied sectors.
• Local livelihood creation – It can create sustainable employment and income opportunities within communities.
• Achieve self-reliance – It will increase domestic production with local manufacturing, innovation and resource utilization.
• Growth of national indicators - As the indicators of these 100 districts improve, the national indicators will automatically show an upward trajectory

What lies ahead?

• Resilient farming - should not be dependent on credit, instead expand and diversify income streams for farmers via allied and value-added activities.
• Build capacity and awareness – provide training and awareness programme for farmers.
• Build private – public partnership– foster collaboration with start-up, private sector and research institution for innovation.

Quick Facts

• Cropping intensity – It is defined as the % of gross cropped area to the net area sown.
• Simply put, it means the number of crops grown on a piece of land in an agricultural year (July-June).
• At the all-India level, it was recorded at 155 % in 2021-22, but there were variations across states.
• It is a measure of how efficiently land is used.

Reference

The Indian Express| Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana