Birsa Harit Gram Yojana

What is Birsa Harit Gram Yojana?

Birsa Harit Gram Yojana is a Jharkhand rural greening and livelihood scheme launched in 2020, one of a group of schemes announced together to put MGNREGA money to work on durable rural assets rather than on one-off earthwork. The idea behind Birsa Harit Gram Yojana is to convert unused private and community land into fruit orchards, using MGNREGA labour to dig the pits, plant the saplings and, critically; to maintain the plantation for the first several years, which is the period in which most village plantations die.

The scheme is commonly written as Birsa Harit Gram Yojna or, in Hindi, as बिरसा हरित ग्राम योजना, and readers searching for it under either spelling are looking at the same programme. It is named, like the Birsa Koop Sinchai Samvardhan Mission for irrigation wells, after Birsa Munda.

Two things distinguish Birsa Harit Gram Yojana from ordinary social forestry. First, the tree is a fruit tree rather than a timber or fuelwood species, so the family gets a marketable crop rather than a public-good plantation. Second, the maintenance years are built into the scheme, so the household continues to earn MGNREGA wages for watering, weeding and guarding the young plants during the years before the orchard yields anything. That combination, wages now, fruit income later; is the whole design.

Key features

• Fruit orchards raised on private, gair-mazarua or community land in villages.
• MGNREGA convergence; pitting, planting and maintenance are executed as MGNREGA works and paid as MGNREGA wages.
• Multi-year maintenance, so plants survive to bearing age instead of dying in the first dry season.
• The orchard remains with the beneficiary household as a long-term income asset.
• Planned and approved at Gram Sabha level, not through any online citizen portal.

A note on figures. Sapling counts per beneficiary, target family numbers and projected annual income from a mature orchard have been quoted at various points since the launch, but the Government of Jharkhand does not currently publish a dedicated departmental page for Birsa Harit Gram Yojana carrying those numbers. This guide therefore describes the scheme's structure and application route rather than reproducing figures that cannot be checked against a live official source. For the numbers applicable to your panchayat this year, ask the Block Development Officer or the Rojgar Sevak.

Who is eligible for Birsa Harit Gram Yojana?

Your household can be taken up under the scheme if:

• You are a rural household in Jharkhand.
• You hold an active MGNREGA job card, since the labour component is paid as MGNREGA wages.
• You have land available for plantation, your own plot, or community or gair-mazarua land that the Gram Sabha resolves to allot for the purpose.
• The plot is currently unused or under-used, which is the land the scheme is meant to bring into production.
• The Gram Sabha includes the work in the panchayat's annual MGNREGA labour budget.
• Your household is willing to maintain the plants through the maintenance period, which is what the maintenance wages are paid for.

Your household is not eligible and cannot apply if:

• You live in an urban area outside MGNREGA's rural coverage.
• You have no job card and do not obtain one — a job card is free and can be applied for at the Gram Panchayat at any time.
• You have no land and the Gram Sabha does not allot community land for your plantation.
• The land is already under a standing orchard or crop the scheme is not meant to displace.
• The work is not sanctioned in the panchayat's labour budget for the year, in which case the answer is to get it included in the next Gram Sabha rather than to apply elsewhere.

Individuals cannot apply directly to the Forest Department or to any state office for this scheme. There is no departmental counter that accepts a citizen form for Birsa Harit Gram Yojana; the panchayat is the only route.

How to apply for Birsa Harit Gram Yojana

1. Get or renew your MGNREGA job card at the Gram Panchayat if the household does not already hold one. The job card is free and is the basis for every wage payment under the scheme.
2. Speak to the Rojgar Sevak, Panchayat Sevak or Mukhiya and say that you want plantation work under Birsa Harit Gram Yojana taken up on your plot, giving the khatiyan or rent receipt details for the land.
3. Get the work included in the Gram Sabha's annual labour budget. MGNREGA works must be approved by the Gram Sabha before they can be sanctioned, so attend the Gram Sabha that plans the year's works and have your plot listed.
4. Where you have no land of your own, ask the Gram Sabha to pass a resolution allotting community or gair-mazarua land for your plantation.
5. Complete the plantation work in the season, pit digging before the monsoon, planting with the rains, and mark attendance on the muster roll so wages are recorded against your job card.
6. Continue the maintenance works in the following years. This is where most plantations fail, and where the scheme's wage support is meant to keep the household engaged.
7. Check your wage credits in your bank or post office passbook and against the MGNREGA MIS records for your panchayat.

How do I check the status of the work?

1. Ask the Rojgar Sevak for the work number and sanction order for the plantation on your plot.
2. Inspect the panchayat's approved labour budget for the year, which is a public document.
3. Check MGNREGA work, muster roll and wage records for your panchayat on the national MGNREGA MIS at nrega.nic.in, where every work and payment is published panchayat by panchayat.
4. Verify each wage credit in the bank or post office passbook of the person who worked.

Common problems and how to fix them

• No job card. Apply at the Gram Panchayat; it is free and cannot be refused to an eligible rural household.
• Work not in the labour budget. Nothing can be sanctioned until the Gram Sabha approves it. Raise it at the Gram Sabha, in writing, and keep a copy.
• Land record unclear. Sort out the khatiyan or rent receipt before the Gram Sabha, or use the community land route with a Gram Sabha resolution.
• Saplings planted but not maintained, the classic failure of village plantations. Maintenance is itself sanctionable work; insist that the maintenance muster rolls are opened in the following years.
• Wages delayed. MGNREGA wages are due within a defined period of muster roll closure and delay attracts compensation. Complain to the Programme Officer and the Block Development Officer.
• Being asked to pay for saplings. Nothing under this scheme is payable by the beneficiary.

Where to get help

• Gram Panchayat, the Rojgar Sevak, Panchayat Sevak and Mukhiya are the first and most important point of contact.
• Block Development Officer and MGNREGA Programme Officer at the block office, for sanction and wage issues.
• Rural Development Department, Government of Jharkhand, rdd.jharkhand.gov.in, which hosts the department's Grievance Redressal Management System and MGNREGA-linked reporting portals.
• Forest, Environment and Climate Change Department, Nepal House, Doranda, Ranchi - 834002, phone 0651-2491669 or 0651-2491098, for questions about nursery supply and departmental plantation programmes.
• MGNREGA MIS: nrega.nic.in, for work, muster roll and payment records for your own panchayat.

Nothing under Birsa Harit Gram Yojana is payable by the beneficiary. Saplings, plantation work and maintenance wages all come from public funds, and any demand for money by a middleman, contractor or panchayat functionary should be reported to the Block Development Officer in writing.