Decentralized People's Nursery

What is the Decentralized People's Nursery scheme?

Decentralized People's Nursery is a scheme of the Social Forestry wing of the Gujarat Forest Department, under the Forests and Environment Department, Government of Gujarat. Under it, an individual or an institution raises forestry seedlings on their own land as a small commercial venture, and the department pays assistance per seedling raised.

The logic behind decentralisation is practical. For decades, seedlings for plantation programmes were raised in a small number of large departmental nurseries and then carted long distances to planting sites. Seedlings suffered in transit, transport ate into the budget, and villages far from a departmental nursery struggled to get planting material at all. A network of small nurseries spread across talukas fixes all three problems at once: material is raised close to where it will be planted, transport losses fall, and the money spent on raising the plants stays with a local family instead of a contractor.

According to the scheme description published for the Gujarat Social Forestry programme, assistance is Rs 2.20 per seedling, paid in three instalments, for an indicative nursery of about 20,000 seedlings. At that size the assistance across the cycle comes to roughly Rs 44,000. Crucially, the beneficiary retains ownership of the seedlings and may sell them without seeking government permission, the department treats the scheme as an income-generating activity, not as job work for the forest department.

What the scheme is trying to achieve

• Increase tree cover in Gujarat by making quality planting material available near villages.
• Add a supplementary income stream for small farmers, landless labourers and BPL households who have a small piece of land and time to tend a nursery.
• Reduce the cost and mortality involved in transporting seedlings from central nurseries to distant planting sites.
• Involve schools, community groups and Scheduled Caste beneficiaries through the special component programme.

Gujarati-speaking readers will find the programme referred to as a vikendrit lok nursery yojana under samajik vanikaran.

Who is eligible for the Decentralized People's Nursery scheme?

You can apply if:

• You are an individual or institution in Gujarat genuinely interested in raising seedlings. The scheme is open to individuals, schools and community bodies alike.
• You can raise about 20,000 seedlings in one production cycle.
• You can reserve land exclusively for the nursery for at least 12 months. Land used for a crop in between does not qualify, because the nursery has to hold seedlings through the full cycle.
• You will treat the nursery as a commercial venture rather than a one-off seasonal activity.
• You apply in response to the local advertisement issued by your Social Forestry division.

Priority categories named in the scheme description are small and marginal farmers, Below Poverty Line cardholders, landless labourers, schools, and Scheduled Caste beneficiaries under the special component programme.

You cannot apply if:

• You have no land available for a nursery, either your own or on a secure arrangement, for the full 12 months. Applicants who cannot commit the site are not eligible.
• You cannot commit to the indicative scale of about 20,000 seedlings. A few hundred plants in a backyard does not meet the scheme's purpose.
• Your site has no assured water source. Seedlings in poly bags need watering through the dry months and a nursery without water fails.
• You want the assistance without raising the plants. Payment is in instalments linked to the seedlings actually raised and inspected, so there is no front-loaded grant to draw and walk away from.
• Your division has not advertised the programme for the current cycle. There is no standing window to apply into.

What documents are required?

How to apply for a Decentralized People's Nursery

1. Contact your local forest office, the Range Forest Officer or the Divisional Forest Officer, Social Forestry, for your district, and ask whether the decentralised nursery programme is being taken up in the coming cycle, and register your interest.
2. Watch for the advertisement. The division publicises the programme in the local media, and applications are invited in response to that advertisement. Note the last date printed in it.
3. Collect and fill the application form from the forest office, stating the site, its area, the water source, the number of seedlings you propose to raise and the species you intend to grow.
4. Attach the documents; Aadhaar, PAN, domicile proof, land or lease papers for the site, bank passbook copy, and income or caste certificate where you are claiming priority.
5. Submit the application at the forest office named in the advertisement before the last date, and keep the acknowledgement.
6. Prepare for site inspection. Forest staff visit the proposed site to check land availability, water and access before the nursery is allotted.
7. Raise the nursery and claim the instalments as the work progresses. The assistance of Rs 2.20 per seedling is released in three instalments across the cycle, each tied to inspection of the plants actually standing.

How is the money paid?

Payment is not a lump sum at the start. The per-seedling assistance is released in three instalments over the production cycle, so the beneficiary carries part of the working capital — poly bags, soil mixture, seed, labour and watering: between instalments. Anyone planning a nursery should budget for that gap rather than assume the first payment covers setup.

Because the beneficiary owns the plants, the assistance is best understood as a support payment on top of the sale value of the seedlings, not as the total income from the activity. Sale of surplus seedlings to farmers, institutions and plantation programmes is where the rest of the return comes from.

Why applications get rejected

• Applied outside the advertised window, or after the last date printed in the local advertisement.
• Site unsuitable at inspection, no assured water, poor access, or the land clearly in use for another crop.
• Land not reserved for 12 months, which the scheme requires explicitly.
• Scale too small to meet the indicative target of about 20,000 seedlings.
• Documents incomplete, most often the land papers or the bank passbook copy.
• Allotment exhausted for the division in that cycle, in which case ask for your application to be considered in the next round.

Where to get help

• Gujarat Forest Department: forests.gujarat.gov.in: Social Forestry section, e-services and division-wise contact details of forest officers.
• Gujarat Forest Department helpline: 1926, available 24x7.
• Range Forest Officer or Divisional Forest Officer (Social Forestry) of your district, the practical first contact for the advertisement, the form, the site inspection and instalment release.

There is no fee for the application, and the assistance is paid into a bank account. No one is authorised to charge for allotting a nursery.

A note on what is and is not published

The Gujarat government publishes the essentials of this scheme. The per-seedling rate of Rs 2.20, payment in three instalments, the indicative 20,000 seedling scale, the 12-month land reservation, the ownership rule and the priority categories. It does not publish a fixed statewide application calendar, a species list or a division-wise allotment table, because those are decided by each Social Forestry division against the coming planting season. That is why the advertisement issued by your own division, rather than any website, is the authoritative source for dates and numbers in a given year.