Krishi Yantra Dhare (Custom Hiring Service Centres)

What is Krishi Yantra Dhare?

Krishi Yantra Dhare is the farm machinery rental programme of the Department of Agriculture, Government of Karnataka (KSDA). Krishi Yantra Dhare operates through Custom Hiring Service Centres (CHSC); depots holding tractors, power tillers, harvesters and a range of implements that farmers can hire for a few hours or a few days at rental rates fixed by government order. The name translates roughly as "farm machinery on hire".

The problem the scheme addresses is a structural one. Karnataka's average holding is small, and a tractor, a combine harvester or a paddy transplanter costs several lakh rupees. A farmer with two or three acres cannot justify buying one, and would use it for only a few days a year if he did. But the same farmer still needs the machine at exactly the right moment, the sowing window after the first good rain, or the harvest window before the crop shatters or the rain returns. Custom hiring separates access to the machine from ownership of it.

The Department of Agriculture publishes the operating framework for the scheme: CHSC operational guidelines, rental revision orders, equipment shifting protocols and related circulars; on the official Krishi Yantra Dhare page at raitamitra.karnataka.gov.in, along with the service provider arrangements.

What can a farmer hire, and at what rate?

Custom Hiring Service Centres stock the machinery used across a normal cropping cycle, land preparation, sowing, intercultivation and harvesting. In practice a centre's inventory is built around what the crops of that region actually require, so a paddy belt centre and a dryland centre will not hold the same machines.

On rates, one point governs everything else: hire charges are fixed by departmental order and are revised periodically. The department's own scheme page carries a series of rental revision orders precisely because the rates change with fuel prices and operating costs. This guide therefore does not print a rate card. Ask the centre, or the Raitha Samparka Kendra, for the current season's approved rate list, and check that the rate you are charged matches it.

The rate list is the farmer's main protection. Because the rates are fixed by order rather than negotiated, a farmer who knows the published rate cannot be overcharged, and a farmer who does not know it can be.

Who can use Krishi Yantra Dhare?

You can hire machinery if:

• You are a farmer cultivating land in Karnataka and need the machine for an agricultural operation.
• You approach the Custom Hiring Service Centre serving your area and book in advance.
• You can identify the land and survey number the machine will work on, and produce identity proof for the centre's register.

Karnataka routes agriculture department benefits through FRUITS, the Farmer Registration and Unified Beneficiary Information System, which now carries over one crore registered farmers across the Agriculture, Horticulture, Sericulture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries departments. Carrying your FRUITS ID makes any departmental transaction simpler, and it is required where a concessional category rate is being claimed.

You are not eligible, and cannot apply, if:

• You want the machine for non-agricultural work. Custom Hiring Service Centres exist for farm operations, and the machinery is not available for construction, transport or commercial hire.
• You want to own the machine. Krishi Yantra Dhare only rents. Assistance for buying farm machinery is a separate route, handled largely under farm mechanisation programmes such as SMAM, and the Raitha Samparka Kendra will point you to it.
• You expect a cash benefit. Nothing is credited to any bank account under this scheme. If a person offers to get you "Krishi Yantra Dhare money", it is a fraud.

How to apply for and book machinery under Krishi Yantra Dhare

1. Find the Custom Hiring Service Centre that serves your village. Ask at the Raitha Samparka Kendra for your hobli, the Department of Agriculture's hobli-level front office, which will tell you which centre covers your area and who operates it.
2. Ask for the current approved rate card for the machine you need, and note the rate, the unit it is charged in, and whether fuel and the operator are included.
3. Book the machine and the dates in advance at the centre, giving your name, village, survey number and the operation to be done. Booking ahead of the season matters more than anything else in this scheme, because a tractor available in the third week of the sowing window is worth far less than one available in the first.
4. Carry your identity proof, and your RTC and FRUITS ID if asked, when you confirm the booking.
5. Take delivery on the agreed date, check the machine before work starts, and have the hours or area worked recorded.
6. Pay the fixed hire charge and take the receipt. Always take the receipt — it is the only evidence if you are later charged above the approved rate.

What commonly goes wrong, and what to do

• Machine unavailable in the peak week. The single biggest practical problem. The only real fix is booking early; a same-day request during harvest is unlikely to be met.
• Charged above the published rate. Ask to see the current rate order. Overcharging against a fixed government rate is a matter for the Assistant Director of Agriculture, not something to be settled informally.
• No receipt issued. Insist on one at the time of payment.
• Breakdown mid-operation. Report it to the centre the same day, in writing. A crop operation missed because of a breakdown is time-critical, so escalate immediately rather than after the season.
• Confusion with purchase subsidy. Farmers frequently arrive expecting a grant to buy a tractor. That is a different scheme; the centre only hires.

How does hiring compare with buying a machine?

Farmers weighing the two routes should think in days of use per year rather than in the purchase price. A machine used for eight or ten days a year carries the same insurance, maintenance, parking and interest cost as one used for two hundred days, and those fixed costs do not shrink with the size of the holding. Hiring converts that fixed cost into a variable one paid only on the days the machine is actually working.

Ownership still wins in two situations. The first is where a farmer's operation is large enough, or the cropping intensity high enough, that the machine works enough days to spread its cost. The second is where a farmer intends to hire the machine out to neighbours and become a service provider, turning the machine into an income source rather than only a cost. Farmers in that second position should ask the Raitha Samparka Kendra about the farm mechanisation purchase subsidy route and about empanelment as a custom hiring service provider, which are handled separately from Krishi Yantra Dhare.

For everyone else, which is most of Karnataka's farmers, given the state's small average holding, hiring is the rational choice, and the scheme exists precisely because that calculation holds for the majority.

What should you check before the machine starts work?

• The rate you are being charged matches the current approved order. Ask to see the rate card, not just to be told the number.
• What the rate includes. Establish before work starts whether fuel and the operator are covered by the quoted charge or billed separately. This is the most frequent source of a dispute at the end of the day.
• The unit of charge. Machinery is charged by the hour or by the area worked depending on the implement, and the two produce very different bills on the same job.
• The condition of the machine and the implement, before it enters your field.
• How hours or area will be recorded, and by whom, so that the final bill is not a matter of recollection.
• The receipt. Ask at the point of booking whether a receipt will be issued and in what form.

Where do you get help?

• Raitha Call Centre (toll free): 1800 425 3553 or 8277003553. The Department of Agriculture's farmer helpline.
• Raitha Samparka Kendra, hobli level; to locate your centre and see the approved rate list.
• Assistant Director of Agriculture (taluk), then Joint Director of Agriculture (district), escalation for overcharging, non-delivery or breakdown disputes.
• Official scheme page: raitamitra.karnataka.gov.in, where CHSC guidelines, government orders and rental revision orders are published for download.

Booking a machine under Krishi Yantra Dhare requires no fee to any agent. The only money a farmer should pay is the published hire charge, paid at the centre against a receipt.

How to check your booking status

Krishi Yantra Dhare has no online application, no login portal and no case number, so there is no "track application" screen to check. What a farmer needs to track instead is the booking itself: whether the machine is confirmed for the date requested, and whether it is still on schedule as the date approaches. There are three ways to do this, and none of them require internet access.

1. Confirm at the time of booking. When you book at the Custom Hiring Service Centre or the Raitha Samparka Kendra, ask the staff to state back the machine, the date and the rate before you leave, and note down who you spoke to. A booking that was never confirmed in this way is the most common reason a farmer later finds no machine waiting on the day.
2. Call ahead of the booked date. Ring the centre a day or two before the machine is due, especially during the peak sowing or harvest weeks when a centre may be juggling several bookings for the same tractor or harvester. This single call catches most scheduling clashes before they cost you a working day.
3. Use the Raitha Call Centre if the local centre is unreachable. Call 1800 425 3553 or 8277003553 and quote your village, the Custom Hiring Service Centre you booked through, and the date. The call centre can confirm your booking is on record and can flag a scheduling problem to the department if the local centre is not responding.

If a machine that was confirmed does not arrive on the booked date, that is not a status you check quietly and wait out. Report it the same day to the centre in writing (even a simple note or SMS kept as a record is enough), and if there is no response, escalate to the Assistant Director of Agriculture at the taluk office. Because farm operations are time-bound, a delayed status here needs same-day escalation rather than the patience you might apply to a paperwork-based scheme.

Common reasons a booking request is turned down or fails

Because Krishi Yantra Dhare is a same-season hiring service rather than a scheme with a written application, requests are not "rejected" on file the way a subsidy application is. They are turned away at the centre, or the booking falls through later. The concrete reasons this happens, and the fix for each:

• The purpose stated is not an agricultural operation. Custom Hiring Service Centres exist to serve farm operations on identified agricultural land. A request to use a tractor for hauling construction material, transport, or any non-farm work will be refused outright. Book only for a stated crop operation on your own or leased farmland.
• The land and survey number cannot be identified. Centre staff record which survey number the machine is going to work on. If a farmer cannot state the survey number, or the land does not correspond to any record the centre can verify, the booking will not be confirmed. Carry your RTC (Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops) so the land can be identified on the spot.
• The machine or implement your region's centre does not stock. A centre's inventory is built around the crops grown in that area, so a paddy-belt centre may simply not carry the implement a dryland farmer is asking for. This is not a rejection of the farmer but a stock mismatch. Ask the Raitha Samparka Kendra which nearby centre carries the equipment you actually need before assuming none is available.
• Booking made too close to the date needed. During the peak sowing or harvest window, every machine at a centre is typically booked out days or weeks in advance. A request made the same week work needs to start will usually fail simply because nothing is free, not because the farmer was disqualified. Book at the start of the season, not when the operation is already due.
• Expecting cash assistance or a purchase subsidy instead of a rental. Some farmers approach a Custom Hiring Service Centre expecting a grant toward buying their own machine. Krishi Yantra Dhare only rents equipment; it pays out nothing and finances no purchase. A request framed as seeking money or a subsidy will be redirected, correctly, to the separate farm mechanisation purchase-subsidy schemes handled through the Raitha Samparka Kendra.
• No FRUITS ID when a concessional category rate is claimed. Where a farmer asks for a category-based concessional rate rather than the standard rate, the centre will ask for the FRUITS (Farmer Registration and Unified Beneficiary Information System) ID to verify the category. Without it, the concessional rate cannot be applied, though the standard hire is usually still available. Register on FRUITS in advance through the Raitha Samparka Kendra if you expect to claim a category rate.