Picture a farmer. The image that comes to mind is of a man. But when one looks at who is actually farming, she is increasingly likely to be a woman. This perception-reality mismatch is caused by age-old practices of collecting data, designing policies and defining who a farmer is. It makes millions of women who work on farms, make agricultural decisions and contribute to production nearly invisible. That may, however, finally be beginning to change.

In July 2026, Maharashtra passed the Women Farmers’ Empowerment Bill, granting women independent recognition as farmers irrespective of land ownership, through a Woman Farmer Certificate. This is the first Indian State legislation to give enforceable legal form to the activity-based, land-delinked definition of ‘farmer’ that the National Policy for Farmers set out in 2007 but never operationalised. The Bill arrives nearly two decades after that policy, and 15 years after a comparable law was first proposed at the national level (a lapsed bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2011). It is, in effect, the culmination of three decades of women farmers’ movements backed by civil society organisations.

State-level efforts have also sought to recognise women farmers before this. Kerala’s Kudumbashree collectives have enabled women to participate in group farming, while Odisha’s KALIA scheme has reached landless and sharecropper women. But a women farmers’ registry delinked from land records had been missing. Maharashtra’s legislation, therefore, represents a potentially important shift, from recognising the owner of agricultural land to recognising the person who actually farms. This matters because women’s participation in agriculture has risen sharply.

The recognition gap

In 2025, agriculture employed roughly 110 million women and 127 million men (rural, as per the PLFS, Census adjusted), bringing the sector close to gender parity. Women’s agricultural workforce has more than doubled since 2017–18, and nearly three-quarters of all rural women workers are now in agriculture, compared with less than half of men. Regrettably most women work without pay. In 2025, more than 41% of female agricultural workers were unpaid, against 20% of men (Chart 1). By contrast, nearly 63% of men were own-account workers compared with 39% of women. While women’s position has improved over time, the gap remains stark. This is where the question of recognition becomes critical, as women are increasingly farming but are not necessarily recognised as farmers.

The worker-owner dichotomy

In India, women largely work on the family lands, even though they may not own it or have their name on the land records, as patriarchal norms have meant that the land records are primarily in men’s names. Subsequently, only 14% of operational agricultural land holdings (as measured primarily through land records) are with women (according to the Agricultural Census 2015-16). The person whose name is in the records gets included in the database and receives the benefits. As a result, not only does the recognition of women agricultural workers as farmers remain ambiguous, but they are also unable to access key Central and State agricultural schemes and incentives linked to land titles (land records).

All States have a large population of women engaged in farming who are never counted as farmers. Since each State uses its land revenue records as the source of truth for administrative purposes, the structural bias against women is carried forward into scheme access and databases. This ultimately translates into women farmers being unable to access credit, subsidies, technology, extension services and other related opportunities. For instance, only 23% of women have been beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme, which provides direct financial assistance of ₹6,000 per year to eligible landholding farmer families to support their agricultural expenses and household needs. For some States, the gap widens (See Chart 2).

Even in States where the share of women in the agriculture workforce is more than 50%, the share of women beneficiaries in most States is less than one-third. The exceptions are revealing. Meghalaya, where women account for 70% of beneficiaries, followed by Kerala with 44% stand apart. These States have institutional or social arrangements that provide women with greater recognition or access to land and agricultural resources. In some northeastern States, customary tenure and matrilineal systems matter; in Kerala, collective farming through groups such as Kudumbashree provides an alternative route to participation and recognition.

At the other extreme are States with some of the widest gaps. In Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, women make up nearly two-thirds of the workforce but represent a small fraction of beneficiaries. The binding constraint, therefore, is not land itself but the identification system built on it. Where the land record is the gatekeeper, women are more likely to be filtered out; where an alternative mechanism exists, women’s access rises substantially.

Year of the Woman Farmer

While the Maharashtra legislation came after decades of advocacy, it is well timed. With the United Nations naming 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer, Maharashtra has taken a potentially transformative first step and paved the way for other States. The Maharashtra Act broadens the definitions of ‘agriculture’ and ‘farmer’ to recognise women residents engaged in agriculture for at least one agricultural season a year, irrespective of the nature of the land, through a ‘Woman Farmer Certificate’.

Importantly, it explicitly recognises categories like landless cultivator, landless livestock rearer, agricultural labourer, plantation labourer, and pastoralist. In principle, this creates a route through which women who do not own land can obtain an independent agricultural identity and gain access to state welfare schemes and credit. But recognition on paper is only the beginning. Implementation will require either self-registration or identification of women farmers by the Gram Sabha, including women who have no land or no land titles in their name. In both cases, this will require a robust information campaign.

This also provides for a new database of women farmers. Connecting this database with existing agricultural databases and avoiding duplication or exclusion will need to be worked out, presenting an opportunity for States to work together. A standardised system across States, for establishing common definitions for identifying women farmers, issuing certificates, and maintaining databases, would make it easier to link the identities of women farmers across schemes and administrative platforms, while avoiding multiple registrations.

But recognition must then translate into access. Linking these certificates to the Agri Stack (a digital platform developed by the Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare) and issuing FarmerIDs to the women is essential to integrating them into the broader digital agricultural ecosystem. However, for recognition to translate into empowerment, continuous efforts at the local level will be needed to make women farmers aware of the schemes and effectively ensure their access.

(The authors work at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). Views expressed are personal.)

Published – September 23, 2026 07:30 am IST

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| Photo Credit: Mohd Arif

New Delhi:

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) which completed ten years of its implementation on Wednesday has had a profound impact on every corner of the country.

The scheme launched in 2014, has proven to be the foundation stone in bringing over 80 per cent of Indian women under the ambit of financial inclusion. A significant boost in the bank account ownership of women in a decade, it has gone up from just 26 per cent in 2011 to 78 per cent in 2021.

Out of the total 53.13 crore Jan Dhan accounts over 30 crore are women’s accounts. Over 35 crore of the Jan Dhan account hail from rural or semi-urban areas. PM Jan Dhana Yojana has diminished the rural-urban divide in terms of bank accounts. The percentage of households that have a bank account or a post office account is now almost the same in urban and rural areas, 95 per cent vs 96 per cent respectively.

PM Jan Dhan Yojana has also bridged the gender gap in access to financial services. The gender gap in accessing financial services was 20 per cent in 2011, and it has been reduced to 6 per cent in 2017 which was less than the Global gap of 9 per cent.

PMJDY has other benefits as well in terms of financial inclusion. As of August 2024, over 36.13 crores of RuPay debit cards are issued without any cost to Jan Dhan account holders. The RuPay debit card is free of cost, it gives an insurance benefit of Rs 2 lakh along with an overdraft facility of up to Rs 10,000 to every cardholder.

The government’s focus on Digital Public infrastructure along with the trinity of Aadhar cards, mobile penetration and Jan Dhan accounts, the JAM trinity has propelled the financial inclusion rate from 25 per cent in 2008 to over 80 per cent of adults in the last 6 years.

PMJDY has been the foundation stone for many more people-centric economic initiatives. Whether it is direct benefit transfers, COVID-19 financial assistance, PM-KISAN, increased wages under MGNREGA, or life and health insurance coverage.

An SBI report in 2021 observed that states with higher PMJDY account balances saw a drop in crime rates and reduced alcohol and tobacco consumption, highlighting the program’s positive social impact.

The Jan Dhan Yojana has garnered global praise for its transformative impact on financial inclusion in India.

In 2023, a G20 report by the World Bank reveals that India has achieved its financial inclusion goals in just 6 years, a feat that would have taken 47 years without its advanced Digital Public Infrastructure.

India has surpassed China in financial inclusion metrics says the SBI report of 2021. Mobile and Internet banking transactions soared to 13,615 per 1,000 adults in 2020, up from 183 in 2015, while the number of bank branches per 100,000 adults rose to 14.7, exceeding those in Germany, China, and South Africa.

India’s account ownership more than doubled from 35 per cent in 2011 to 78 per cent in 2021. All these are because of the government’s various initiatives for financial inclusion.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday, February 1, presented the last full budget of the Narendra Modi government before the 2024 general elections. The Minister announced a range of new initiatives, revised income tax slabs and customs duty, and sops for agriculture and energy transition.

The Union Budget 2023-24 document also listed the new allocations for core welfare schemes that drive socio-economic development. Here’s a roundup of how the budgetary allocations for some of the key schemes have changed-

MGNREGS: The government slashed the budget for its flagship rural employment scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by nearly 32% compared to the ₹89,400 revised estimate for the scheme in the current year.

Also read | Explained | The funding and demand for MGNREGA

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was passed in 2005 and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. Under it, the MGNREGS is a demand-driven scheme that guarantees 100 days of unskilled work per year for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country except those with a 100% urban population.

Food Subsidies: The Centre has allocated a little above ₹2 lakh crore for the food subsidy under the National Food Security Act (NFSA)- this includes funds for the Food Corporation of India, funds for decentralised procurement of grains by State agencies, and other logistical costs. Starting from January 1, 2023, the Centre had decided to provide 5 kg of free foodgrains per month to the 81.35 crore beneficiaries of the NFSA for one year starting from January 2023, rather than charging them a subsidised amount of ₹3 a kg of rice, ₹2 a kg of wheat and ₹1 a kg of coarse cereal as is usually done.

It was announced in December that the government was terminating the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), which had provided an additional 5 kg of free grains every month to NFSA beneficiaries after being launched as an emergency measure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 and received multiple extensions since. In a normal year, without COVID disruptions, the Centre’s food subsidy bill on account of the NFSA amounted to around ₹2 lakh crore, similar to the newly-announced allocation, but the PMGKAY had effectively doubled that sum for the past two years.

Jal Jeevan Mission: The Centre increased its budgetary allocation for the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) or the National Rural Drinking Water Mission by about 27% to ₹70,000 crore from the current year’s revised estimates of ₹55,000. The Jal Jeevan Mission aims to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024 to all households in rural India.

The Jal Shakti Ministry tweeted last week that the government had provided 11 crore rural households with a tap water connection under the JJM scheme. Data from the Ministry’s dashboard suggest that 56% of the targeted 19.3 crore households had been covered.

The scheme has a total financial outlay of about ₹3.60 lakh crore, with the Centre funding 50% of the cost with States and Union Territories, except for Union Territories without a legislature, where it foots the entire bill, and northeastern and Himalayan States and Union Territories with legislatures, where it funds 90% of the bill.

Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY: The budget for the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) — the national public health insurance fund, saw an increase of about 12% at ₹7,200 crore compared to the ₹6,000 crore revised estimates for the current year.

The Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY is a health insurance scheme launched in 2018, aiming to provide a health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization. It aims to over 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families (or 50 crore beneficiaries) from the bottom 40% of the Indian population. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had said in December 2022, that 4.5 crore people had so far been empanelled under the scheme.

PM-Kisan: The allocation for the Prime Minister’s Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme was the lowest in five years and remained the same as the revised estimates for the current year at ₹60,000 crore. PM-Kisan is a flagship Central scheme launched in 2019 for cash transfers ₹6,000 per year to eligible farmer families in three instalments of ₹2,000 each.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed while presenting the Union Budget on Wednesday that the government has made cash transfers totalling ₹2.2 lakh crore to around 11 crore farmers under the PM-Kisan scheme.

PM-POSHAN: The government has allocated a budget of ₹11,600 crore to the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman, or the rebranded version of the mid-day meal scheme for 2023-24. This is down 9.37% from the current year’s revised estimates of ₹12,800.

In 2021, while renaming the mid-day meal scheme to give hot cooked meals to 11.8 crore government school students from Class 1 to 8, the Centre had also decided to extend the scheme to 24 lakh children studying in balvatikas, the pre-primary section of government schools from 2022-23.

National Education Mission: A total of ₹38,965 crore was allocated to the National Education Mission for 2023-24, up 19.44% from the ₹32,612 crore revised estimates for the current year. The Mission is the umbrella scheme integrating major education-related schemes so education can be provided holistically and without segmentation from pre-primary to class 12. It includes the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan under the Right to Education and schemes for secondary and higher education as well those for teacher training and adult education.

PMAY: The Centre allocated ₹79,590 crore to the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), up 3.19% from the current year’s revised estimates and 66% from the budget estimates. The PMAY aims at constructing houses in both urban and rural areas. PMAY-Gramin (rural) was initiated in November 2016 with a target of completing 2.7 crore houses and PMAY-Urban was initiated in June 2015 with a target of constructing 1.2 crore homes.

National Social Assistance Program: The budget allotted ₹9,636 to the National Social Assistance Program (NSAP), which provides monthly pension assistance to the elderly, widows, and persons with disabilities.

Development of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes: The budget allocated ₹4,295 crore and ₹9,409 crore to the umbrella programs for the development of Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste communities respectively. While the ST development allocation saw a nearly 10% increase, the SC programme funding rose by close to 22%, compared to the current year’s revised estimates.

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The number of farmers who received the 11th instalment of funds from the Prime Minister’s Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) has fallen by 67%, according to the Agriculture Ministry’s response to a Right to Information query from activist Kanhaiya Kumar. PM-KISAN is a flagship Central scheme launched in 2019 to pay eligible farmer families ₹6,000 per year in three instalments of ₹2,000 each.

The Agriculture Ministry’s instalment-wise payment success report showed that only 3.87 crore farmers recieved the 11th instalment of ₹2,000 in their accounts in May-June 2022. This is a sharp drop from the 11.84 crore farmers who recieved the first instalment back in February 2019, just before the Lok Sabha elections. The latest 12th instalment was disbursed in October 2022.

Read | The farmer’s jigsaw: movement fails to impact outcome in U.P.

From 11.84 crore farmers in the first instalment, the trend of decrease started from the sixth instalment which was received by 9.87 crore farmers. The seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth instalments were received by 9.30, 8.59, 7.66 and 6.34 crore people respectively.

The Ministry did not respond to The Hindu’s queries on why the number of beneficiaries has declined so sharply.

The data revealed that in Andhra Pradesh, the number of beneficiaries came down from 55.68 lakh to 28.2 lakh. In Bihar, the number of beneficiaries reached seven lakh from 83 lakh, while in Chhattisgarh, just two lakh farmers received the eleventh instalment, instead of 37 lakh people who got the amount in the first instalment.

In poll-bound Gujarat, 63.13 lakh farmers got the amount in 2019 and in 2022, only 28.41 lakh farmers benefited by the scheme. In Haryana, 19.73 lakh farmers received the first instalment and 11.59 lakh farmers got the 11^th instalment. In Maharashtra, the number came down from 1.09 crore in 2019 to 37.51 lakh in 2022. In Madhya Pradesh, while 88.63 lakh farmers received the help in 2019, just 12,053 of them received the amount in 2022. In Meghalaya, 627 farmers got it in 2022 against 1.95 lakh farmers in 2019. In Punjab, the number decreased to 11.31 lakh from 23.34 lakh.

In Uttar Pradesh, 2.6 crore farmers availed the aid in 2019, and it decreased by half to 1.26 crore in 2022. In West Bengal, according to the data, 45.63 lakh farmers received the amount in 2019 and no farmers got the money since the sixth instalment. The State government had raised this matter with Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

In Assam, the number of people who received the payment came down from 28.79 lakh to 2.54 lakh. In Chandigarh, just three people got the amount in May-June 2022. In Delhi, the number came down to 2,065 from 16,513. In Himachal Pradesh too, the number came down by half from 9.86 lakh to 5.43 lakh. In Jammu and Kashmir, the beneficiaries who received the payment was 5.61 lakh from 12.07 lakh in 2019. In Jharkhand, 4.17 lakh farmers got the money in May-June. In 2019, 27.07 lakh people received the amount. In BJP-ruled Karnataka, the number came down from 55.61 lakh to 2.58 lakh. In Kerala, 24.23 lakh beneficiaries received the payment in 2022 against 36.99 lakh in 2019. Similarly in Odisha, 7.05 lakh farmers got the payment in 2022 while in 2019, the number was 39.20 lakh. In Tamil Nadu, 23.04 farmers received the money in 2022 and 46.8 lakh got the amount in 2019. In Telangana, 24.32 lakh people received payment in 2022 and for the first instalment was received by 39.10 lakh farmers. In Tripura too, the number has come down by half.

All India Kisan Sabha president Ashok Dhawale termed the data as “very shocking”. “Two thirds of the farmers have not received the payment according to this data in 2022. There is no logical reason for why such a decrease in the number of beneficiaries. It shows that the Centre is trying to slowly wind up this scheme. This scheme is not at all a substitute for the legally guaranteed MSP. This scheme was another jumla to skirt the real issues the farmers are facing,” Dr. Dhawale said.

The Ministry said no money was transferred to any fraud beneficiary under the PM-KISAN scheme, adding that the benefits have been transferred directly into bank accounts only after the receipt of 100% error free data of farmers from States, which is validated through Aadhaar or the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) database.

The government had earlier said that so far, eligible farmer families have received benefit of more than ₹2 lakh crore under the scheme through 11 instalments. “Of this, ₹1.6 lakh crore has been transferred during the COVID-19 pandemic period. With the 12th instalment to be released by Prime Minister on October 17, the total amount transferred to the beneficiaries is expected to cross well over ₹2.16 lakh crore,” a recent release said.