Assam Tea Industries Special Incentives Scheme (ATISIS), 2020

What is the Assam Tea Industries Special Incentives Scheme (ATISIS), 2020?

Assam Tea Industries Special Incentives Scheme, universally shortened to ATISIS, 2020, is an industrial incentive scheme of the Government of Assam for the state's tea manufacturing industry. The scheme was notified with effect from 1 April 2020 and is administered by the Industries, Commerce and Public Enterprises Department through the Commissionerate of Industries & Commerce and the District Industries & Commerce Centres (DICCs), with the Finance Department carrying the notification and the Tea Board and lending banks built into the verification chain.

The problem ATISIS was designed to fix is specific. Assam's tea output is dominated by CTC tea, while global premium demand runs to orthodox and specialty teas. Manufacturing orthodox tea costs roughly 20 to 25 per cent more per kilogram than CTC, so gardens have little commercial reason to switch even when the export price is better. ATISIS bridges that cost gap with a direct per-kilogram subsidy, and pairs it with cheaper working capital and capital subsidy so a garden can actually retool.

The Chief Minister launched the scheme with a projected outlay of about Rs 300 crore per annum. The ATISIS portal reports 739 tea beneficiaries under the scheme to date.

What incentives does ATISIS provide?

ATISIS has four components:

Interest subvention reduces the effective cost of the working capital that a garden borrows to fund a season. Because the claim is verified against the lending bank's records, the ATISIS portal gives banks their own login role.

Production subsidy of Rs 7 per kg is the core of the scheme and is paid on orthodox or specialty tea actually produced. It is not capped per unit, a larger producer of orthodox tea receives proportionately more, but it is limited by verified production, which is why the Tea Board has a login role on the portal.

Plant and machinery subsidy of 25 per cent, capped at Rs 30 lakh, is the retooling incentive. Orthodox manufacture needs different rolling and processing equipment from CTC, and this component pays a quarter of that investment.

Agricultural income tax holiday was included as a three-year relief and is covered by separate guidelines published on the ATISIS portal.

How long does ATISIS run and what is the last date to claim?

ATISIS, 2020 was originally applicable for three years from 1 April 2020, that is up to 31 March 2023. The scheme was subsequently extended for five years to the end of FY 2027-28, with the production subsidy element running from FY 2023-24 through FY 2027-28 under the extension. The ATISIS portal publishes both the original notification and the amended versions covering 2023 to 2026, so a claimant should always read the amendment applicable to the year being claimed rather than the 2020 base notification alone.

The claim deadline is the part that catches units out: the claim for the subsidy has to be made online by 30 June on completion of every financial year. A garden that produced qualifying orthodox tea in FY 2025-26 must file its claim on the portal by 30 June 2026. There is no rolling window and no general condonation of delay published on the portal.

Who is eligible for ATISIS, and who cannot apply?

Eligible claimants are enterprises, not individuals. ATISIS is claimed by:

• Tea estates, tea gardens and tea manufacturing units in Assam that manufacture orthodox or specialty tea, for the production subsidy and the plant and machinery subsidy.
• Tea industry units with sanctioned working capital facilities from a bank, for the interest subvention component.

You cannot apply for a personal benefit under ATISIS if you are:

• A tea garden worker or plucker. ATISIS pays the manufacturing unit, not the workforce. Worker welfare in Assam runs through separate labour and social security measures, and nothing in ATISIS gives a worker an individual claim.
• A household, farmer family or individual citizen. There is no citizen application route, no ration-card or income-based eligibility, and no DBT payment to individuals.
• A small tea grower who only supplies green leaf and does not manufacture orthodox or specialty tea. The production subsidy attaches to manufactured orthodox or specialty tea, verified against Tea Board records.
• A unit claiming for CTC tea production. The Rs 7 per kg subsidy and the 25 per cent machinery subsidy are specifically for orthodox and specialty tea.
• A unit that missed the 30 June claim window for the financial year in question.

This is the point readers get wrong most often, so it is worth stating plainly: ATISIS is an industry incentive scheme. An individual cannot apply for a personal payment under it. If you are looking for an individual benefit in Assam, the state's social security and pension schemes are the relevant route, not ATISIS.

What documents does an ATISIS claim need?

The ATISIS portal publishes role-specific user manuals: separate manuals for tea gardens, for banks and for the Industry & Commerce Department: along with the agricultural income tax holiday guidelines and the modalities of the tea development promotion scheme. Read the tea garden manual before starting a claim; it is the operative instruction set for the online form.

How to apply for ATISIS online

1. Open the ATISIS portal at atisis.assam.gov.in and download the applicable notification and the tea garden user manual. Confirm which amended version governs the financial year you are claiming for.
2. Create an account using the SIGN UP option on the portal, selecting the tea garden role. Registration requires the unit's details and an authorised signatory.
3. Log in with the credentials created, choosing the tea garden login from the role-based login options. The same portal separately serves Tea Board officials, banks, and the Industries & Commerce Department.
4. Complete the unit profile — Tea Board registration, PAN, GST, factory details, and bank account particulars for disbursement.
5. File the claim for the financial year, entering kilogram-wise orthodox or specialty tea production for the production subsidy, working capital and interest details for the interest subvention, and machinery invoice details for the capital subsidy.
6. Upload the supporting documents against each component and submit the claim on or before 30 June following the close of that financial year.
7. Track verification. The claim is validated by the bank for the interest subvention element and by the Tea Board for production, before it goes to the Industries & Commerce Department for sanction.
8. Follow up with your District Industries & Commerce Centre (DICC) if the claim stalls. District DICCs publish ATISIS among their schemes and are the local point of contact.

How is an ATISIS claim verified and paid?

The scheme is deliberately built as a multi-party workflow rather than a single department decision. The tea garden enters the claim; the lending bank confirms the working capital facility and the interest actually charged; the Tea Board confirms production of orthodox or specialty tea; and the Industries & Commerce Department sanctions and releases. Each of these parties has its own login and its own user manual on the ATISIS portal.

Financial incentives under the tea industry special incentive schemes have been disbursed to tea gardens in public disbursement events, including a distribution by the Chief Minister in March 2023, which gives a sense of the batch-wise rhythm of payment rather than a continuous flow.

Why do ATISIS claims fail?

• Claim filed after 30 June for the relevant financial year.
• Production figures do not reconcile with Tea Board records. Mismatches between the claim and Tea Board data are the standard cause of a held-up production subsidy.
• CTC production claimed as orthodox or specialty.
• Bank has not endorsed the interest subvention component on the portal.
• Machinery invoices without proof of payment, or machinery not attributable to an orthodox or specialty tea line.
• Wrong notification version applied, the amended notifications from 2023 onwards changed the operative terms for later years.
• Portal account opened by an unauthorised person, so the claim cannot be accepted as a valid submission by the unit.

Where do I get help with ATISIS?

The ATISIS portal publishes atisis.assam@gmail.com for technical assistance with registration, login and password recovery. For scheme and sanction questions, the Commissionerate of Industries & Commerce, Government of Assam, publishes notifications and circulars at industriescom.assam.gov.in, and the District Industries & Commerce Centre for the district in which the garden is located is the local office, Dibrugarh DICC, for instance, lists ATISIS among its schemes with the portal link and a district email address.

The original ATISIS, 2020 notification and its amendments are hosted by the Finance Department at finance.assam.gov.in and mirrored by the Assam Infrastructure Financing Authority. Read the notification for the year you are claiming, it, not any summary, is the binding document.