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At a state-level PMAY-G event at Baran, Rajasthan, the Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and Rural Development handed the Chief Minister a sanction for 2,89,355 rural houses with a project outlay of Rs 3,473 crore.
A further Rs 340.59 crore was released for agricultural development initiatives and the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.
Three eligibility relaxations were set out: households owning a two-wheeler are no longer excluded, the women's income ceiling rises from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 a month, and small farmers with up to 5 acres unirrigated or 2.5 acres irrigated land qualify.
Rajasthan's Lakhpati Didi target was doubled from the 16 lakh already achieved to 32 lakh, with Rs 13,400 crore disbursed to women through banks so far.
The Minister said stronger legislation on pesticides and seeds would be introduced in the next session of Parliament, and that Rajasthan has a Rs 12,000 crore investment target under the Viksit Bharat-G RAM G Yojana over nine months.
Provide a pucca house with basic amenities to every rural household living in a kutcha or dilapidated house. Implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development.
Key: Launched on 20 November 2016 with effect from 1 April 2016, restructuring the earlier Indira Awaas Yojana. Unit assistance is Rs 1.20 lakh in plain areas and Rs 1.30 lakh in North Eastern and hill states and the UTs of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
Build 2 crore additional rural houses over five years, taking the programme's cumulative target to about 4.95 crore houses by March 2029.
Key: Approved by the Union Cabinet in August 2024 with a total outlay of Rs 3,06,137 crore - Central share Rs 2,05,856 crore and State matching share Rs 1,00,281 crore. As of 26 March 2026, 3.90 crore houses had been sanctioned and 2.99 crore completed under Phases I and II.
Enrol households left out of the earlier PMAY-G permanent wait list, using a fresh survey rather than the older SECC-based list.
Key: Launched on 17 September 2024, run through a mobile app with a self-survey mode using Aadhaar face authentication and an assisted mode through panchayat enumerators. The exclusion criteria were relaxed for it - the monthly household income ceiling was raised from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000, and owning a motorised two-wheeler or a refrigerator ceased to be a ground for exclusion.
Enable women members of self-help groups to earn a sustainable household income of at least Rs 1 lakh a year through micro-enterprise, skilling and credit linkage.
Key: Announced by the Prime Minister in the Independence Day address of 15 August 2023 with a 2 crore target; raised to 3 crore in the interim Budget of February 2024. It is delivered through DAY-NRLM, not as a standalone scheme.
Organise rural poor women into self-help groups and their federations and link them to finance, skills and markets.
Key: Launched in June 2011 as the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, restructuring the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana; renamed Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-NRLM in November 2015. It is the parent mission for Lakhpati Didi.
Promote sustainable agriculture through a flexible 'cafeteria' of components that states choose from in their annual action plans.
Key: Created in October 2024 when the Cabinet rationalised the Agriculture Ministry's centrally sponsored schemes into two umbrella schemes - PM-RKVY for sustainable agriculture and Krishonnati Yojana for food security. Combined outlay Rs 1,01,321.61 crore, of which the Centre bears Rs 69,088.98 crore and states Rs 32,232.63 crore.
Guarantee wage employment in rural areas while building durable village assets, with planning driven at the gram panchayat level.
Key: Runs under the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025, in force from 1 July 2026. Rs 95,692 crore was provided for it in 2026-27.
The law the Minister described as inadequate against fake pesticides. It regulates the import, manufacture, sale, transport, distribution and use of insecticides to prevent risk to humans and animals, and is operationalised through the Insecticides Rules, 1971.
The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare released a revised draft on 7 January 2026 and invited public comments until 4 February 2026. It is intended to replace the Insecticides Act, 1968 and the Insecticides Rules, 1971, and proposes higher penalties for spurious pesticides along with digital processes and traceability. An earlier attempt, the Pesticide Management Bill, 2020, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 23 March 2020 with the same purpose.
The governing law on seed quality, regulating the sale of notified kinds and varieties. The Central Seed Committee and the Central Seed Certification Board are constituted under it; the Act was amended in 1972, and the first Central Seed Certification Board was set up in 1984. The Minister said new seed legislation would be brought in the next session of Parliament.
The statute behind the Viksit Bharat-G RAM G Yojana. The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 16 December 2025 and received presidential assent that month; the Act came into force in all rural areas from 1 July 2026, repealing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005. It raises the statutory guarantee to not less than 125 days of unskilled manual work per rural household per financial year, retains the unemployment allowance if work is not provided within 15 days of demand, and channels works into four thematic domains - water security, rural infrastructure, livelihood-related infrastructure and mitigation of extreme weather events.
Advises the Central and State Governments on technical matters arising out of the administration of the Insecticides Act, 1968 - a high-level advisory body drawing members from across departments and disciplines.
Registers insecticides after scrutinising their formulae and verifying the manufacturer's or importer's claims on efficacy and safety to humans and animals. Constituted under the Insecticides Act, 1968 with a Chairman and up to five members of the Board, including the Drugs Controller (India) and the Plant Protection Adviser to the Government of India.
The apex body on matters of seed quality regulation and certification, advising on the administration of the Seeds Act, 1966.
Advises on seed certification standards and coordinates the functioning of state seed certification agencies.
India runs two different fertiliser subsidy systems side by side. Urea is sold at a Maximum Retail Price fixed by statute regardless of what it costs to make or import - notified at Rs 242 per 45 kg bag, exclusive of neem-coating charges and applicable taxes, which is why the retail figure quoted for farmers works out to about Rs 266. The manufacturer is reimbursed the gap between that MRP and the cost, so the subsidy floats with global gas and urea prices while the farmer's price stays flat. Phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertilisers such as DAP and MOP are instead covered by the Nutrient Based Subsidy policy in force since 1 April 2010, under which the government fixes a subsidy per kilogram of each nutrient - nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur - and lets the company set the retail price. The consequence, and the standard exam point, is that urea is far cheaper relative to its nutrient content than P&K fertilisers, which pushes farmers towards over-applying nitrogen and skews the soil's NPK ratio.
Simple Analogy: Urea is priced like a rationed commodity with the shop price fixed by law and the shopkeeper reimbursed the difference. P&K fertilisers are priced like a subsidised market good: the government hands over a fixed amount per unit of nutrient, and the price on the bag moves with the market.
The urban twin of PMAY-G, approved in 2024 to assist one crore urban families through four verticals including interest subsidy and affordable rental housing - a standard compare-and-contrast with the Gramin scheme's flat unit assistance model.
The Viksit Bharat-G RAM G Act, 2025 replaced the 2005 employment guarantee law from 1 July 2026 and raised the guarantee from 100 to 125 days - the single most examinable rural development change of the year.
Lakhpati Didi sits on the DAY-NRLM base of SHGs and their federations, the same institutional architecture that delivers Bank Sakhi, Krishi Sakhi and Bima Sakhi roles.
Cheap statutorily priced urea against market-priced P&K fertilisers is the standard explanation for India's skewed nitrogen use, and links to the Soil Health Card scheme and neem-coating of urea.
Baran, Kota and Jhalawar form the Hadoti plateau of south-eastern Rajasthan, drained by the Chambal - the state's relatively better-watered agricultural belt, which is why a crop-diversification and processing roadmap is proposed there rather than in the arid west.
GS Paper 2 > Governance > Welfare Schemes for Vulnerable Sections; GS Paper 3 > Agriculture and Subsidies
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Static GK
General Awareness > Priority Sector, Rural Credit and Government Schemes
For election to the Lok Sabha, a nomination paper can be filed by
Answer: any citizen of India whose name appears in the electoral roll of a constituency.
Rural housing and livelihood schemes appear every year in Prelims scheme-based questions, and the MGNREGA replacement makes rural employment law unusually high-yield in 2026-27.
A dwelling built of temporary materials such as mud, thatch or unburnt brick; PMAY-G targets households living in kutcha or dilapidated houses.
The supplementary survey used to add households left out of the PMAY-G permanent wait list; the 2024 round runs on a mobile app with Aadhaar face authentication.
A woman self-help group member whose household earns a sustainable income of at least Rs 1 lakh a year.
A scheme design in which states pick components from a menu to suit local needs rather than implementing a fixed package - the model used for PM-RKVY.
The policy in force since 1 April 2010 under which subsidy on P&K fertilisers is fixed per kilogram of nutrient and the retail price is left to the company; urea stays outside it under statutory price control.