Promotion of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants on Commercial Basis (HADP Project 5)

What is HADP Project 5 on medicinal and aromatic plants?

Promotion of Commercial Cultivation of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAP) is the fifth of the 29 projects cleared under the all-round Agriculture Development Programme (HADP), the Rs 5,013 crore five-year package of the Agriculture Production Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir.

Jammu and Kashmir sits across three agro-climatic belts and holds one of India's richest pools of medicinal and aromatic species; lavender, rosemary, clary sage, kalazeera, kuth, mushkbala, artemisia and many others. Most of that value has historically left the union territory as raw or semi-processed material. HADP Project 5 tries to keep it, by organising growers into clusters, giving them planting material and good agricultural practices, and building the processing, certification and marketing steps that turn a herb into a priced product.

The six components in the implementation guidelines

1. Cultivation and harvesting, site selection district by district, farmer awareness and cluster formation, 28 farmer cluster groups of 20 to 50 farmers each, six nursery sites of 5 hectares (three in Jammu, three in Kashmir), germplasm procurement, standardised land preparation and training in Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs).
2. Processing and value addition, primary processing (cleaning, washing, drying, trimming, sometimes local distillation) at cluster level, then secondary processing at the FPO parks, including hydro-distillation and compression for essential oils and isolation of active ingredients.
3. Certification; verification against the standard operating procedures of the Ministry of AYUSH, certification through the National Medicinal Plant Board, organic certification, Quality Council of India involvement, and a Certificate of Pharmaceutical Product (CoPP) under the WHO-GMP scheme from CDSCO where required.
4. Packaging and marketing: durable international-standard packaging, AYUSH compliant labelling, temperature-regulated storage, industry tie-ups, a digital platform with a payment gateway, and promotional stalls at exhibitions and trade fairs in India and abroad. JKHPMC, the FPO parks, FSSAI and e-Charak are named as the stakeholders.
5. Capacity building; zone-wise awareness programmes and training of farmers and rural youth across every stage of the value chain, plus exposure of subject matter experts to foreign centres of excellence.
6. Research and development — site suitability studies, a Centre of Excellence in Herbal Technology at SKUAST-Kashmir, standardisation of package of practices, germplasm conservation and bioprospecting.

Who is eligible for HADP Project 5?

You can seek assistance if:

• You are a farmer, start-up grower or nursery operator resident in Jammu and Kashmir, with land in a micro zone found suitable for the species concerned.
• You are willing to join or form one of the 28 farmer cluster groups, or to become a member of the FPO park in your division.
• You will follow the Good Agricultural Practices package standardised by SKUAST and submit to certification requirements.
• You are a farmer producer cluster, FPO or certified nursery, which the guidelines list as recognised stakeholders alongside individual growers.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• You have already availed the same activity benefit under another scheme or programme. HADP bars duplication of activities.
• You are seeking the public nursery sites, the Centre of Excellence in Herbal Technology, the research components or the JKHPMC processing infrastructure. These are institutional and are executed by the department, SKUAST, IIIM Jammu and JKHPMC, individuals are not eligible to apply for them.
• You are not resident in Jammu and Kashmir.
• Your land falls outside the identified suitability zone for the species you propose.
• You want a credit-linked case handled offline; no offline credit-linked HADP case is accepted.

What documents are required?

How to apply for HADP Project 5

1. Register on the Kisan Sathi portal at hadp.jk.gov.in with your mobile number and Aadhaar details.
2. Log in and open Project 5 to Promotion of Medicinal/Aromatic Plants on Commercial Basis.
3. Select Application for establishment of MAP cultivation units, the single activity form listed for this project.
4. Enter the species you propose, the area in hectares or kanals, your district and block, and the source of planting material.
5. Upload Aadhaar, land record and bank passbook, adding a DPR from the portal's DPR Generator if you also propose a distillation or processing facility.
6. Submit and note the application reference number.
7. Attend the cluster formation and GAP training organised by the Department of Agriculture with SKUAST, cluster membership is central to how this project operates.
8. Complete the planting, then let the departmental committee verify the unit. Assistance is released back-ended through DBT.

How to apply with offline help

1. Visit your nearest Kisan Khidmat Ghar and ask the operator to register you on Kisan Sathi and file the MAP form.
2. Attend the awareness programme run in your zone; the guidelines make cluster formation the entry point for this project, and awareness sessions are where growers in a micro zone are identified.
3. Speak to the J&K Medicinal Plant Board or your Chief Agriculture Officer about which species suit your altitude and soil before committing land, since lavender, kalazeera and kuth have very different requirements.

How much assistance does HADP Project 5 provide?

The implementation guidelines for Project 5 set out the value chain and the stakeholders rather than a public rate card; the assistance against a MAP cultivation unit is fixed in the year's action plan and shown on the Kisan Sathi form when the window opens. Two HADP-wide rules always apply:

• Subsidy is back-ended only, released after the department confirms substantial physical progress.
• In credit-linked cases the subsidy is credited to the loan account with a three-year lock-in, with repayment up to eight years, or five years on loans below Rs 2 lakh.

Related components, the six nurseries, the two FPO parks, essential oil extraction infrastructure, certification support and the Centre of Excellence; are funded separately in the public sector and reach growers as services rather than as cash.

How do I check my application status?

1. Log in to hadp.jk.gov.in with your registered mobile number.
2. Open the applicant dashboard to see the stage of your MAP application.
3. If a sanction shows but the money has not arrived, check that the bank account is active and Aadhaar-seeded, since DBT fails on dormant accounts.

Why MAP applications get rejected

• Duplication, the same cultivation or distillation unit already availed under the National Medicinal Plant Board, MIDH or another scheme.
• Species not suited to the applicant's zone, on the site-suitability assessment.
• No assured source of quality planting material, which is the commonest practical failure in MAP cultivation.
• Land record mismatch with the Aadhaar name.
• Plantation not established or not maintained when the committee inspects, which blocks the back-ended release.
• Bank refusal on the credit component of a distillation unit.

Where do I raise a complaint?

• Use the Grievance link on hadp.jk.gov.in and track it under Grievance Status.
• Contact the Agriculture Production Department at 0191-2505201 (Jammu) or devagri-jk@jk.gov.in.
• Escalate through the Chief Agriculture Officer of your district, the J&K Medicinal Plant Board, or the Mission Directorate, HADP.

Registration on Kisan Sathi is free, and no agent is authorised to charge a fee for securing a HADP sanction.