Two different numbers, and the gap between them is your bill. The government publishes a cost norm — a ceiling it will calculate a subsidy against. The market publishes a price — what a builder will actually charge. On this page the norms are sourced from the MIDH operational guidelines of April 2025 and every one names the page it came from. The market prices are a supplier's published figures, attributed and linked, and they are not scheme rates.
The short answer
Almost every page you will read says protected cultivation carries a 50% subsidy. That is true of the cost norm and it is not true of your bill. Worked at the full 4,000 square metre limit, the same 50% rule returns roughly 50% on a net house, 35% on a naturally ventilated polyhouse and 16% on a fan and pad greenhouse — because the further the market price sits above the norm, the more of the structure falls outside the calculation entirely.
What each structure costs, and what you actually get back
All three rows are worked at 4,000 square metres, which is the per-beneficiary limit for protected cultivation and about 98.8% of an acre.
| Structure | Market price | Cost norm | Subsidy at 50% | You pay | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shade net / agro textile net house | ₹24.00 lakh | ₹28.40 lakh | ₹12.00 lakh | ₹12.00 lakh | 50% |
| Naturally ventilated polyhouse | ₹54.40 lakh | ₹38.00 lakh | ₹19.00 lakh | ₹35.40 lakh | 34.9% |
| Fan and pad greenhouse | ₹1.84 crore | ₹58.00 lakh | ₹29.00 lakh | ₹1.55 crore | 15.8% |
The cost norms are the Mission's own, and they slide with area — the per-square-metre rate falls as the structure grows. The figures above use the top band, 2,080 to 4,000 square metres: ₹950 per square metre for a naturally ventilated polyhouse, ₹1,450 for fan and pad, and ₹710 for a tubular or rectangular shade net house. The full sliding scale is in the polyhouse cost norms guide, with the page of the guidelines each band comes from.
The market prices — ₹600, ₹1,360 and ₹4,600 per square metre — are published by Agrifirst, which builds these structures commercially: see its comparison of NVPH, fan and pad and net house and its commercial net house costing. We have not audited them and they are not a quotation; treat them as one supplier's published figures and get your own quotes.
Why the net house is the one where 50% means 50%
Look at the first row again. The market price of a net house, ₹600 per square metre, sits below the ₹710 cost norm. The norm is a ceiling, so it never binds: the calculation runs on what the structure actually costs and the 50% comes out as 50%.
The naturally ventilated polyhouse is the opposite. Its market price is about 43% above the norm, so roughly ₹16 lakh of a ₹54 lakh structure sits outside the calculation before a single condition is applied. For fan and pad the market price is more than three times the norm, and about ₹1.26 crore of the build is simply not in the sum.
One caution on the first row. That it runs on the lower of the two numbers is the ordinary way a ceiling works, and it is not something the guidelines say in those words. Ask your district horticulture office to confirm how they compute it before you plan around it.
Which door: NHM or NHB
The 4,000 square metre limit is the fork in the road. It was raised from 2,500 square metres with effect from 12 August 2025, stated to be in order to avoid duplication among the sub-schemes.
- Up to 4,000 square metres — the Mission, through your state horticulture department, against the per-square-metre norms above.
- Above 4,000 square metres — the National Horticulture Board, in project mode, as a credit-linked back-ended subsidy. The rate is 35% of eligible project cost in general areas and 45% in the North Eastern and Himalayan states, Scheduled Areas and the four specified union territories — the Board’s circular of 21 August 2026 names protected cultivation projects among the components it applies to. Confirm the per-project ceiling with the Board: the figure we hold for it comes from a provision that circular replaced. The Board's per-acre norms are here, and they are structured differently: ₹40.00 lakh per acre for the polyhouse with drip and fogger, against ₹28.40 lakh for a shade net house.
Note what that means for a ten-acre plan. The Board's cap is per project, so a ₹100 lakh ceiling against a build that Agrifirst puts at roughly ₹2.5 crore for ten acres of net house is a much smaller share than the headline suggests.
The Board’s door is shut as this is written. Fresh Grant of Clearance applications under NHB Scheme No. 1 and Scheme No. 2 were suspended for one month with effect from 4 September 2026, while the revised guidelines are implemented and the online system updated; the online facility for fresh applications is unavailable during that period. Check whether it has reopened before you plan around the NHB route.
The add-ons are a separate calculation
The structure is not the whole project. Circulation fans carry their own norm — ₹5,000 per fan, 50% assistance, a maximum of six — and so do fertigation, hydroponics and the rest. Those are in the add-ons guide. What you grow inside is costed separately again: the planting material and cultivation norm is the one most people miss, and on flowers it can be larger than the structure's own assistance.
Before you build: the one condition that disqualifies people
Approval comes before construction. A structure already standing is generally not eligible, and that single sequencing mistake is the commonest way a claim is lost — a point the market guidance also stresses repeatedly. Get the sanction, then break ground.
The rest is ordinary: land documents in your name or on a long lease, identity and bank details, and a project proposal the department will read against its own checklist. Bihar is the one state that publishes those checklists component by component — worth reading even if you farm elsewhere, because it shows what an application is actually judged on.
What your state adds, and why you must check
The norms above are national. States run their own top-ups and their own windows, and a state page that looks current often is not: we read four states against the national guidelines and found all four describing the scheme as it stood in 2014. That comparison is here, and your own state's page is here with the department that runs the Mission where you are.
What to do next
- Decide the structure from the climate and the crop, not the subsidy — a fan and pad house you cannot fill is worse than a net house you can.
- Work your own figure: market quote × 4,000, minus 50% of the lower of your quote and the norm.
- Ask the district horticulture office which components are open this year and which order governs them.
- Get the sanction before you build.
If the terms in your state differ from the national norms, tell us and name the order — that difference is exactly what this platform exists to record.
