Changed on 21 August 2026. The National Horticulture Board revised its rate of assistance to 35% in general areas and 45% in the North Eastern and Himalayan States, Scheduled Areas and specified Union Territories. Cold storage subsidy is now capped at ₹2.00 crore per project, the cost of land no longer counts as eligible project cost, and only one member of a family may ever claim. Fresh applications have also been paused since 4 September 2026. What changed, in full.
Read this first: the NHB figures on this page come from Annexure VI of the MIDH Operational Guidelines, April 2025, which is headed “National Horticulture Board: proposed changes in components and cost norms”. They are recorded here as written. Confirm the operative position with the National Horticulture Board before spending money.
NHM caps protected cultivation at 4,000 square metres per beneficiary, roughly one acre. Above that, the project moves to NHB, and the way the numbers are written changes from per square metre to per acre.
The threshold and the rate
Commercial horticulture development under protected conditions in project mode is costed against MIDH cost norms including add-on components, for an area above 4,000 square metres per project, on a pro-rata basis. Assistance is credit-linked subsidy at 35% of eligible project cost, with maximum subsidy up to ₹100 lakh per project.
The per-acre norms
| Crop | Structure with drip and fogger | Cultivation | Ceiling per acre with add-ons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthurium and orchid | ₹40.00 lakh | ₹33.60 lakh | ₹80.00 lakh |
| Carnation and gerbera | ₹40.00 lakh | ₹29.28 lakh | ₹75.00 lakh |
| Rose, lilium, chrysanthemum, gypsophila | ₹40.00 lakh | ₹20.45 lakh | ₹70.00 lakh |
| High-value vegetables under a polyhouse | ₹40.00 lakh | ₹6.72 lakh | ₹55.00 lakh |
| High-value vegetables under a shade net house | ₹28.40 lakh | ₹6.72 lakh | ₹40.00 lakh |
How to read this table
The structure cost is the same ₹40.00 lakh per acre for every polyhouse crop. What changes is the cultivation cost, which reflects how expensive the planting material is, and the overall ceiling per acre once add-on components are included.
A shade net house is cheaper than a polyhouse on both the structure and the ceiling, which is why the vegetable row differs between the two.
The subsidy cap bites before the per-acre ceiling
Maximum subsidy is ₹100 lakh per project. At 35% of eligible cost, that ceiling is reached at about ₹286 lakh of eligible project cost. For high-value vegetables under polyhouse at a ₹55.00 lakh per acre ceiling, that is a little over five acres. Beyond that the project can grow but the subsidy does not.
Plug nurseries follow the same shape
A hi-tech plug type nursery under controlled conditions is treated the same way: above 4,000 square metres, 35% of eligible project cost, maximum ₹100 lakh per project.
For anything at or under 4,000 square metres the Mission is the route rather than the Board, and the arithmetic is different. The two are compared side by side here, against what the structures cost on the market.
