Godhan Nyay Yojana

What is Godhan Nyay Yojana?

Godhan Nyay Yojana is a Chhattisgarh government scheme under which the state bought cow dung from farmers and cattle rearers at a fixed price, and used it to make organic fertiliser through village-level enterprises. The Chhattisgarh government launched the scheme on 21 July 2020, on Hareli, the state's traditional agricultural festival.

The scheme's name translates as "justice for cattle wealth"; godhan being the old term for cattle as wealth. It is written in Hindi as गोधन न्याय योजना and searched as Godhan Nyay Yojna and gobar kharidi yojana.

The rates the scheme fixed:

• Cow dung: Rs 2 per kilogram, paid to the seller.
• Cow urine: Rs 4 per litre, added later as the scheme expanded.
• Vermicompost: Rs 8 per kilogram, the price at which the finished compost was sold on to farmers.

The machinery was the gauthan, a designated village cattle-shelter and work area. Cattle rearers brought dung to the gauthan, where it was weighed and recorded against their registration. Women's self-help groups working at the gauthan converted it into vermicompost and organic manure, and converted cow urine into liquid fertiliser and pest-control preparations marketed locally as Brahmastra and Jeevamrit. The compost went back to farmers through the cooperative network.

Godhan Nyay Yojana therefore had two sets of beneficiaries at once: the cattle rearer who was paid Rs 2 a kilo for something previously of no cash value, and the self-help group that earned from processing and selling it.

Who could sell under Godhan Nyay Yojana?

A person qualified as a seller if:

• The person was a cattle rearer or livestock owner in a Chhattisgarh village with a functioning gauthan.
• The person was registered as a cow dung seller with the Gauthan Samiti or Gram Panchayat, and held the seller entry or card issued against that registration.
• The person held an Aadhaar-seeded bank account in their own name for the Direct Benefit Transfer payment.

Landless cattle keepers were expressly included. That was a deliberate design choice: the entitlement attached to keeping cattle, not to owning land, so households excluded from land-linked farm schemes could earn from it.

A person was not eligible if:

• The village had no functioning gauthan, since dung was purchased only at gauthans and not collected from homes.
• The person had not registered with the Gauthan Samiti before selling.
• The person had no Aadhaar-seeded bank account, since no cash was paid at the gauthan.
• The dung offered was mixed with soil, sand or litter beyond what the gauthan accepted at weighing.

What was the scheme's measured reach?

Published figures give a sense of scale rather than a complete picture. Registered cow dung sellers rose from 2,45,831 in 2020-21 to about 3,12,647 subsequently. An October 2022 status note recorded Rs 5.59 crore disbursed and 1,62,497 cattle farmers benefited, with 44.55 per cent of beneficiaries being women. A 2024 academic review of the gauthan and Godhan Nyay programme found that 94.27 per cent of approved gauthans had been fully constructed. Around 300 gauthan industrial parks were planned across the state.

Similar cow dung procurement models were subsequently taken up by other states, including Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

What is the current status of Godhan Nyay Yojana?

Godhan Nyay Yojana was a flagship programme of the Bhupesh Baghel government that held office until December 2023. Following the change of state government, procurement under the gauthan model has been substantially curtailed, and no fresh statewide cow dung procurement drive on the original scale has been widely reported since. Some gauthans continue as cattle shelters and self-help group work centres under other departmental arrangements.

A reader should treat the Rs 2 per kilogram purchase as not currently guaranteed and confirm the position locally before relying on it. The place to ask is the Gram Panchayat Secretary or the Janpad Panchayat, not an agent.

This guide records the scheme as it was designed and operated, because registered sellers still ask about pending payments and about what the scheme entitled them to.

What documents were required for Godhan Nyay Yojana?

How to apply for Godhan Nyay Yojana

Godhan Nyay Yojana had no online application. The route was entirely local.

1. Visit the Gram Panchayat office or the Gauthan Samiti in your village and ask to be registered as a cow dung seller. Carry Aadhaar, a bank passbook and a residence document.
2. Complete the registration entry, giving your name, village, bank account number and IFSC code, and the number of cattle kept. The samiti records the entry and issues the seller identification against which quantities are logged.
3. Ensure your bank account is Aadhaar-seeded and DBT-enabled at your branch, since payment is made only by transfer and never in cash at the gauthan.
4. Deliver cow dung at the gauthan on the announced collection days. The quantity is weighed and entered against your registration in the gauthan register in your presence — check the entry before leaving.
5. Receive payment on the fortnightly cycle into your bank account, and match the credit against the quantities recorded in the register.

Where a village had no gauthan, residents had to raise the demand through the Gram Sabha for one to be sanctioned, since no household-level collection existed.

Why payments failed, and what to do

• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded or dormant, so the DBT bounced back. The fix is at the bank branch, ask for Aadhaar seeding with NPCI mapping.
• Name mismatch between Aadhaar, the gauthan register and the bank account.
• Quantity mis-recorded at weighing, so the credit is lower than the dung delivered. This is why checking the register entry on the spot matters.
• Registration incomplete, where a seller delivered dung before the samiti entry was made.
• Fortnight cycle not yet run, which accounts for most complaints raised within a few days of a delivery.

A seller with a pending amount should first take the gauthan register entry to the Gauthan Samiti, then to the Gram Panchayat Secretary, and then to the Janpad Panchayat or the block Agriculture Extension Officer.

Where to raise a Godhan Nyay Yojana grievance

• The Gauthan Samiti and the Gram Panchayat Secretary in your village.
• The Janpad Panchayat and the block-level Agriculture Extension Officer.
• The District Deputy Director of Agriculture at the district collectorate.
• The Chief Executive Officer, Zila Panchayat, for gauthan management and self-help group matters.
• The state agriculture portal at agriportal.cg.nic.in for departmental contacts and orders.

No registration fee was ever charged under the scheme, and no payment was made in cash at the gauthan. Any demand for money to register a seller or to release a pending payment should be reported to the Zila Panchayat CEO.