2,393 Farmers 4 Districts 3 Years One Number to Call

What the Kisan Mitra Helpline taught us about why government schemes fail — and what actually fixes them.

A woman farmer in Vemula mandal, YSR Kadapa, has 1.3 acres of land and an Aadhaar card. She is enrolled in Rythu Bharosa. She has a bank account. The money has not arrived for five months.

She goes to the Grama Volunteer. She goes to the Mandal Agriculture Office. She is told to wait.

Then she calls the Kisan Mitra Helpline. A field coordinator investigates. The problem: her land record was not updated on the portal. The fix: a phone call to the Agriculture Officer, a correction in the system. Three weeks later, ₹5,500 reaches her account.

She was already entitled to it. The money was allocated. The scheme was real. The only thing missing was someone to investigate why the system had excluded her.

This is not an exceptional story. It is the pattern.

Over three years — FY 2023-24 to FY 2025-26 — the Kisan Mitra Farmers Helpline, run by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), documented 2,393 such cases across four districts of Andhra Pradesh: YSR Kadapa, Sri Sathya Sai, Kurnool, and Annamayya.

Overall resolution rate: 82.9%*

In the most mature coverage area (YSR Kadapa), the resolution rate hit 94.7% in FY 2023-24.

Agriculture cases resolved in a median of 18 days. Animal Husbandry cases resolved in 3 days — a veterinary camp organized after a single phone call vaccinated 954 cattle in one day.

Life insurance claims under YSR Bheema/Chandranna Bima: 100% resolved.

So what were farmers actually calling about?

Not corruption. Not deliberate exclusion. Mostly: a cascade of administrative failures that no one had a mandate to fix.

PM-KISAN payment not received? E-KYC not completed. Aadhaar not linked to the bank account. Land records not updated online. Bank account on hold. The system does not notify the farmer when any of this happens. She finds out only when she checks her account.

Crop loss compensation denied? The farmer didn’t register her standing crop through a mandatory pre-harvest process called “crop booking.” She had never heard of it. The system did not tell her it existed. Without crop booking, there is no compensation — regardless of what the rains did to her field.

Life insurance claim stuck?  Death certificate format mismatch. Family member not registered. Process too complex to navigate without a guide.

Land record wrong? The MIBHOOMI digitisation created new errors alongside its corrections. The correction mechanism requires multi-departmental sign-off. The farmer has no tracking number. No one is responsible.

These are not edge cases. They are the normal experience of Indian agricultural governance for the farmers it is designed to serve.

What three years of data reveals about the system

The resolution rates by department are the most analytically powerful finding in the data. They don’t measure problem complexity. They measure departmental willingness to act when a case is formally flagged and tracked.

*Animal Husbandry: 3 days
*Agriculture: 18 days
*Rural Development: 76 days
*Revenue: 448 days

When Animal Husbandry can respond in three days and Agriculture in eighteen, the argument that slow resolution is inherent to government systems collapses. Slow resolution is a departmental choice — shaped by whether cases are visible, tracked, and linked to accountability.

The helpline creates visibility and tracking. The district grievance mechanism creates accountability. Together, they transformed outcomes in YSR Kadapa. The same infrastructure doesn’t yet exist in Kurnool (45% resolution rate) and Sri Sathya Sai (53%) — districts added recently, without equivalent administrative depth. That gap is not about the quality of the problems. It is about the quality of the institutional relationships.

The dual-peak no one talks about

The data also reveals something that should change how agricultural helplines are staffed and how awareness campaigns are planned.

Calls don’t arrive uniformly through the year. There are two sharp peaks:

June–August — when the kharif input support payment is expected and doesn’t arrive, and when monsoon rains damage crops. July 2023 alone generated 294 calls — 11.3 per working day — almost entirely banana crop loss from nine mandals.

November–January — when PM-KISAN instalments and life insurance claim settlements are due. In FY 2023-24, 70% of the year’s PM-KISAN and YSR Bheema cases arrived in this three-month window.

September is dead quiet. Nine calls in September 2023. The entire month.

The implication is direct: staff up in July and November. Run crop booking awareness campaigns in May — before the kharif surge hits — not after it. Use September for training and data audits. Reaching 5,000 farmers in May prevents 500 calls in July.

What we learned about what doesn’t resolve

Honest assessment matters. Not everything the helpline touches resolves.

Revenue department cases: 36.3% resolution, 448-day median. Patta-assigned land cases: 0% resolution across three years. MIBHOOMI land correction cases: 15% resolution. MGNREGS job card denials: 19% resolution.

These aren’t helpline failures. They are precise maps of where the system is structurally blocked — where no individual facilitation can substitute for policy reform, legal aid, or revenue tribunal intervention.

A farmer who has cultivated government-assigned land for 35 years without a formal patta cannot get his title through a helpline. But the helpline can document his case, refer it to the District Legal Services Authority, file a representation to the Revenue Secretary, and ensure that his exclusion is not invisible. That matters — even when it doesn’t produce quick resolution.

The zero-resolution cases are not programme failures. They are evidence submissions waiting to be made.

The access problem — and the simple fix

88.3% of cases come through field coordinators. The helpline’s reach is bounded by where its coordinators are deployed. Farmers in mandals without coverage don’t call — not because they have no problems, but because they don’t know the number exists or don’t have a coordinator to help them navigate the call.

The most important single action to expand access is also the simplest:

Print the helpline number on every document that records a government promise to a farmer.

PM-KISAN enrollment receipts. Rythu Bharosa passbooks. MGNREGS job cards. Crop insurance acknowledgements. Every document that says “you are entitled to this” should also say “call this number if you don’t receive it.”

Everything else — WhatsApp intake channels, community radio, FPO board meeting slots, SHG weekly meeting checklists — builds on this foundation. But the foundation is the number on the document.

The larger argument

India’s agricultural welfare architecture is, on paper, generous. PM-KISAN. Input support. Life insurance. Crop compensation. MGNREGS. Pensions. These are real commitments, budgeted and allocated.

What the architecture didn’t build was a delivery mechanism that could reliably reach the farmer it was designed for — or a feedback mechanism that told anyone when it wasn’t reaching her.

The Kisan Mitra data is three years of evidence that the gap is not in the schemes. It is in the last mile between policy intent and farmer receipt. And it is a gap that is closeable — not by changing policy, but by creating an accountable interface between the farmer and the system, and connecting that interface to a district-level review mechanism with the authority to compel departmental action.

The Agriculture Department responds in 18 days when cases are tracked. Revenue takes 448 days. The difference is not the complexity of the work. It is whether someone is watching.

What we’re building next

We propose a framework for scaling: embedding the helpline function in Farmer Producer Organizations and Self-Help Groups, training FPO Case Coordinators and SHG Community Facilitators, formalizing District Helpline Review Committees in new districts, and building a state-level advocacy channel that converts cumulative case data into policy submissions.

The data is ready. The framework is documented. The next step is implementation — and partnership.

If your organization works with farmers, FPOs, SHGs, or district administration in Andhra Pradesh or elsewhere in India, we would be glad to explore collaboration. The model is replicable. The evidence base is solid. And the farmers who haven’t called yet are waiting for a number to dial.

G.V. Ramanjaneyulu is Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), Hyderabad.
The Kisan Mitra Farmers Helpline operates across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The full three-year case analysis report is available at csa-india.org.

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AP KisanMitra 3Year Report