Chai Vikas Yojana (Tea Development Scheme)

What is Chai Vikas Yojana?

Chai Vikas Yojana, the tea development scheme, is run by the Directorate of Horticulture under the Agriculture Department, Government of Bihar. The scheme subsidises new tea plantation and the machinery a tea grower needs, in the north-east corner of the state where soil and rainfall resemble the Dooars and Darjeeling foothills across the border in West Bengal.

According to the Directorate of Horticulture, Chai Vikas Yojana pays 50 percent of the notified unit cost of tea plantation, reported at around Rs 4.94 lakh per hectare, giving a subsidy of roughly Rs 2.47 lakh per hectare. The subsidy is released in two instalments on a 75:25 basis to 75 percent of the sanctioned subsidy in the first year and the balance 25 percent in the second year, conditional on a 90 percent plant survival rate.

Alongside plantation, the scheme funds 50 percent of the cost of tea machinery, with reported ceilings of about Rs 60,000 for a pruning machine and Rs 50,000 for a mechanical harvester, plus support for plucking shears, leaf carriage vehicles and leaf collection sheds.

Bihar's tea story is essentially Kishanganj's story. Tea came to the district from neighbouring Bengal in the early 1990s and now covers several thousand hectares of smallholder gardens, most of them under a hectare, feeding bought-leaf factories. Chai Vikas Yojana exists to widen that base into Araria, Purnia, Katihar and Supaul and to mechanise the plucking and pruning that smallholders currently do by hand.

Who is eligible for the Bihar tea development scheme?

You can apply if:

• Your land lies in one of the notified districts, Kishanganj, Araria, Purnia, Katihar or Supaul.
• You hold a 13-digit DBT Agriculture registration number.
• You have land records in your own name, or a registered lease if you farm as a non-ryot.
• You meet the minimum area notified for the component, around 2 acres under tea for the pruning machine and mechanical harvester.
• You have an Aadhaar-seeded bank account in your own name.
• You are willing to bear 50 percent of the cost yourself and wait for reimbursement.

You cannot apply if:

• Your holding is outside the five notified districts. Tea grown elsewhere in Bihar is not eligible under this component.
• You cannot produce land papers or a registered lease of adequate tenure. A verbal sharecropping arrangement is not eligible.
• Your area is below the notified minimum for the machinery component.
• You have already drawn plantation subsidy on the same plot in an earlier year, the same area cannot be funded twice.
• Your bank account is not Aadhaar-seeded, since DBT release is impossible.
• You expect the department to supply free saplings — the scheme is reimbursement-based and applications on that assumption are not eligible.

How to apply for Chai Vikas Yojana

1. Register at dbtagriculture.bihar.gov.in and keep the 13-digit DBT Agriculture registration number. Registration is free.
2. Update your land record entry in the DBT profile so that the khata, khesra and area in an eligible district are visible to the horticulture form.
3. Open horticulture.bihar.gov.in, go to the Scheme Dashboard, and find the Chai Vikas Yojana link for the current financial year.
4. Enter your DBT registration number. The form pulls your verified name, address, land and bank details.
5. Select the component; new plantation area in hectares, or the machinery item you want, or both if the year's notice allows.
6. Upload Aadhaar, land records or the registered lease, bank passbook and photograph.
7. Submit and save the application number from the confirmation screen.
8. After sanction, buy the saplings or the machine yourself against a proper GST bill in your own name, plant within the notified season, and upload the bills.
9. Request physical verification by the district horticulture office. The first instalment follows verification; the second follows the survival check in the next year.

How to apply with help

1. Visit the Assistant Director (Horticulture) at the district agriculture office in Kishanganj, Araria, Purnia, Katihar or Supaul.
2. Carry Aadhaar, land papers, bank passbook and your DBT registration number.
3. Ask the office to file the online application on your behalf. There is no parallel paper application.
4. Alternatively use a Vasudha Kendra, which can also create the DBT registration in the same visit.

How the money is released

The machinery component works differently: the farmer buys the machine, uploads the GST invoice, the officer physically verifies the machine with its serial number, and 50 percent of the cost up to the component ceiling is released in a single DBT payment.

How to check status and payment

1. Open horticulture.bihar.gov.in and use the application status link for the tea component.
2. Enter your DBT registration number or application number.
3. The screen shows submitted, forwarded, sanctioned, verified or paid.
4. For payment failures, check the bank details on your DBT Agriculture profile, which is where the account number actually lives.

Why tea subsidy applications get rejected or stall

• Land outside the notified districts, or a khesra whose district in the land record does not match the address claimed.
• Lease tenure too short. Tea takes three to four years to yield; a one-year lease is routinely rejected.
• Bills predating sanction. Saplings or machines bought before approval are not reimbursable.
• Bills not in the beneficiary's name, or handwritten bills without GST details for machinery.
• Survival below 90 percent at the second-year inspection, which blocks the final 25 percent and can trigger recovery of the first instalment if the plantation has failed altogether.
• Same plot funded earlier under this or another plantation component.
• District target exhausted for the financial year.

Key dates and the planting calendar

Chai Vikas Yojana opens in a notified window each financial year on the Scheme Dashboard rather than staying open all year. The practical constraint is the planting season; tea in the Kishanganj belt is planted with the monsoon, so sanctions are timed to let farmers plant between roughly June and September. Applying at the start of the window matters, because sanction, purchase and planting all have to fit inside the same season for the first instalment to be released that year.

Why the machinery component matters more than it looks

Tea in Kishanganj is a smallholder crop, and the binding constraint on those gardens is not land or planting material but labour at plucking time. Leaf has to come off the bush on a roughly seven to ten day cycle through the season, and a garden that misses its round sells coarse leaf at a discount to the bought-leaf factory. Hand plucking on two acres needs more workers than most families in the belt can find or afford at peak, which is precisely why the department subsidises mechanical harvesters at 50 percent up to about Rs 50,000 and pruning machines at 50 percent up to about Rs 60,000.

Two practical points follow. First, the minimum area condition of around two acres exists because a harvester is uneconomic below that, and small growers are better off pooling into a group and sharing a machine than each buying one they cannot use fully. Second, machine plucking gives coarser leaf than skilled hand plucking, so growers selling into a premium orthodox line should check with their buying factory before mechanising. Plucking shears, which are far cheaper and also supported, are often the better first step for a one-acre garden.

Grievance and contact

• Directorate of Horticulture, Bihar: 0612-2521772
• Email: dir-bhds-bih@nic.in
• District level: Assistant Director (Horticulture) at the district agriculture office. The sanctioning and verifying authority
• Kisan Call Centre: 1800-180-1551

Applying under Chai Vikas Yojana is free. No agent can secure a sanction for you, and the only legitimate payments a tea grower makes are to the nursery or the machinery dealer, against a bill in the grower's own name.