Why income support schemes tend to elude tenant farmers: Grassroots studies

Amid the rising buzz that instalments under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) could go up ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha elections, an old question rears its head again: How and in what form can benefits be passed on to tenant farmers, or growers who do not own land?

PM-Kisan is a central government scheme of 2018 that gives Rs 6,000 a year as minimum income support to small and marginal farmers. It covers farmer families with cultivable landholding in their names.

Tenant, or landless, farmers have usually been off the radar for several government schemes. In some states