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.
Applications are paused. The National Horticulture Board suspended fresh Grant of Clearance applications under Scheme No. 1 and Scheme No. 2 for one month from 4 September 2026. The Board has said the resumption date will be notified separately, so there is no fixed reopening date. Check the Board's own website before you plan around this.
Two public circulars in three weeks changed the National Horticulture Board schemes more than the last several years did. If you were working from figures published before August 2026, including the ones that used to be on this site, they are out of date.
The rate dropped
The circular of 21 August 2026 sets a single pair of rates across the Board's components.
| Component | General areas | NER and Himalayan States, Scheduled Areas, specified UTs |
|---|---|---|
| Open field cultivation projects | 35% | 45% |
| Protected cultivation projects, including plug-type nurseries | 35% | 45% |
| New tissue culture units, private sector | 35% | 45% |
| Integrated mushroom units | 35% | 45% |
| Post-harvest management components | 35% | 45% |
| Cold storage projects | 35% | 45% |
The specified Union Territories are the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the Lakshadweep Islands, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
For open field projects the old rate was 40%, so the change is modest. For protected cultivation it was 50%, so a grower planning a polyhouse project is looking at roughly a third less assistance than the earlier annexure suggested. Cold storage stays at 35% in general areas, which is where it already was.
The circular is explicit that ceilings and component conditions are unchanged. Only the percentage moved.
Cold storage now has a hard ceiling
No cold storage project, of any type, can draw more than ₹2.00 crore of subsidy from the Board. On a project large enough to reach that ceiling, the 35% rate stops being the binding number.
Land no longer counts
The cost of land is not part of eligible project cost any more. The earlier position allowed newly purchased land into the calculation, capped at 10% of the eligible cost and ₹60,000 per acre. That is gone.
Land development is a different matter and survives. Paragraph 5 is headed “Cost of Land” and removes the cost of land only. The guidelines list Cost of Land and Land Development as separate items, and the eligible-cost formula in both reads “excluding cost of Land and Land Development”, so the two terms are distinct in the drafting. Levelling, digging of pits, fencing and gates remain admissible at actual cost or up to 15% of eligible project cost, capped at ₹60,000 per acre. The circular does not spell this out, so we have recorded it as our reading rather than as the Board's words.
One claim per family, permanently
This is the change most likely to catch someone out. “Family” now means the applicant plus spouse, father, mother, sons and daughters. Only one member of that family may ever take Board assistance, whether directly, through a Hindu Undivided Family, through a partnership or proprietorship firm, or as a director of a company.
Once any one of them has claimed, no other member can claim again under any Board scheme or component, even if the family used only part of the ceiling. The circular calls this the family's final entitlement.
There is one relieving provision. Where a farmer producer organisation, farmer producer company or company has already claimed, its members may still claim once in their own individual capacity.
Applicants have to sign a declaration covering themselves and their family members. Getting it wrong is not treated lightly: suppression or misrepresentation makes the assistance recoverable with interest.
Some people can no longer apply at all
- Present holders of constitutional posts.
- Present Ministers and Ministers of State, Members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Members of State Legislative Assemblies and Councils, Mayors of Municipal Corporations, and Chairpersons of District Panchayats.
- Serving employees of Central and State Government Ministries and Departments, public sector undertakings, autonomous bodies and local bodies, except Multi Tasking Staff, Class IV and Group D employees.
- Retired pensioners drawing a monthly pension of ₹10,000 or more, again excepting Multi Tasking Staff, Class IV and Group D employees.
- Groups of farmers.
Family members of people in these categories may still take one-time assistance, subject to the family rule above.
You can now exit voluntarily
A beneficiary may opt out during the lock-in period by refunding the whole subsidy with any applicable interest. Once the Board accepts the refund and the conditions are met, the obligations and restrictions that came with the subsidy fall away. That matters if a project needs to be sold or restructured before the lock-in ends.
Application form charges went up
| Project cost | Form and brochure |
|---|---|
| Up to ₹20 lakh | ₹2,000 |
| Above ₹20 lakh and up to ₹50 lakh | ₹5,000 |
| Above ₹50 lakh and up to ₹100 lakh | ₹10,000 |
| Above ₹100 lakh and up to ₹150 lakh | ₹15,000 |
| Above ₹150 lakh and up to ₹200 lakh | ₹20,000 |
| Above ₹200 lakh | ₹50,000 |
Goods and services tax at 18% is extra.
If your application is already in
Pending Letter of Clearance and Grant of Clearance applications and subsidy claims are to be handled case by case, guided by the letter and spirit of the amended provisions. That is not a promise that the old rate will be honoured, and it is not a statement that it will not be. If you have a live application, ask the Board directly what rate is being applied to it.
What we changed on this site
The National Horticulture Board figures here originally came from Annexure VI of the April 2025 MIDH guidelines. The claims the August 2026 circular replaces are marked superseded: they stay visible with their original citation, but they are no longer presented as current.
Two points the circular does not spell out — whether cold storage modernisation keeps its old rate, and whether land development counts as land — we have settled from the documents themselves and recorded as interpretations, labelled as our reading rather than as the Board's words. Both are worth confirming with the Board before you commit money.
Every statement above links to the circular it came from. If we have read something wrong, use the report form at the bottom of any page.
