Govt says farmers' incomes more than doubled; but doesn't give any number Last week, Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah sought support from Agricultural Rural Development Banks to fulfil Modi’s vision of doubling farmers’ income

Farmers' incomes have more than doubled, as the government had promised in 2016, the Centre claimed in Parliament July 19, 2022. But it did not give any figures or details on how this happened and what are the current income levels.

The claim was made by the Union Minister for Agriculture, Narendra Singh Tomar, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha to a series of questions asked by the Congress Member of Parliament Manish Tewari on whether farmers' income has doubled in the last six years.

The promise was first made six years ago by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Replying to this, Tomar listed a series of initiatives taken to improve incomes and said, "The efforts of the government for positive implementation of these schemes are yielding huge results,"

"The income of the farmers is continuously improving. It has been seen that it has more than doubled," he added.

But he did not give any state-wise or country-wise data on this. He instead referenced a recent book released by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, which documented cases of 75,000 farmers who have increased their income more than two times.

India has 146.19 million operational holdings, according to Agriculture Ministry's last input survey for 2016-17.

The benchmark estimated annual income was Rs 96,703 in 2015-16 which was taken as a base year, according to the government's DFI (doubling farmers' income) report.

This comes to be Rs 8,059 per month, which was promised to be doubled in real terms to Rs 21,146 per month, taking inflation into account by 2022.

To a question on this, Tomar, curiously, stated the figures from the National Sample Survey Office's 77th Round of Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households released in 2021.

It underscores farmers' monthly income at only Rs 10,218 per month, half of the minister was claiming. 

The surveys were from the agriculture year July 2018 to June 2019. The agriculture minister failed to explain if the substantial jump from Rs 10,218 to Rs 21,146 happened in the last two years alone.

"In response to a starred question of mine, the Agriculture Minister has made an astounding claim". Farm Incomes have doubled between 2016 -2022. If the matter wouldn't have concerned lives & livelihoods of 82 crore Indians it would have been laughable," Tewari later said in a post on social media.

Last week, Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah sought support from Agricultural Rural Development Banks to fulfil Modi's vision of doubling farmers' income and stressed the need for expansion of long-term finance for the development of the agriculture sector.