PM PRANAM

Imagine a company rewarding its own branches financially for cutting costs, rather than simply cutting their budget outright, so the incentive to save money comes from opportunity rather than punishment. PM PRANAM, PM Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother Earth, applies a similar logic to state governments and chemical fertiliser use.

The scheme incentivises states to reduce their consumption of chemical fertilisers and promote alternative, more balanced nutrient management practices, by sharing back a portion of the fertiliser subsidy the central government saves as a result, directly with the state that achieved the reduction. Since fertiliser subsidy is a large and growing central government expense, this effectively turns a portion of that saved subsidy bill into a fiscal reward for the state, rather than the saving simply vanishing into central government accounts.

PM PRANAM sits alongside efforts like Neem Coated Urea as part of a broader, gradual policy push to rebalance India's fertiliser use away from an overdependence on cheap, heavily subsidised chemical nitrogen, toward more sustainable soil management over time.