Plant Protection including Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Scheme

What is the Plant Protection including Integrated Pest Management scheme?

Plant Protection including Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a state plan scheme of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Government of Meghalaya. According to the department's FAQ on agriculture schemes, the key objective is "to mobilize and support farmers to use bio-pesticides and bio-agents for plant health management through distribution of bio-pesticides and other IPM tools and through sale of Sprayers and Plant Protection Equipments to encourage organic crop production."

Plant Protection including Integrated Pest Management is funded by the State Government. The Meghalaya Government portal lists the scheme's sponsor as "State", the concerned department as the Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Department and the beneficiaries as "Farmers".

The scheme is the department's practical answer to a hill-state problem. Meghalaya farms small, scattered, sloping plots where blanket chemical spraying is both expensive and hard to do safely. Integrated Pest Management substitutes traps and biological agents for much of that chemical load: a light trap or a sticky trap costs nothing to run once installed, and it does not need to be reapplied after every shower.

What the scheme is built around

• Bio-pesticides and bio-agents distributed free to farmers.
• IPM tools; fly traps, sticky traps, baffle traps and light traps; also distributed free.
• Plant protection equipment, principally sprayers, sold at 50% subsidy.
• The stated end goal is organic crop production, not merely lower pesticide bills.

Who is eligible for the IPM scheme in Meghalaya?

You can apply if:

• You are a bonafide farmer of Meghalaya engaged in agriculture.
• You have cultivable land. The department's eligibility line for this scheme head is "bona fide farmers having cultivable land engage in agriculture", and the selection line adds "having sufficient available cultivable land".
• You apply through the officer with jurisdiction over the area where you ordinarily reside, the ADO of your C&RD Block or Agriculture Circle.

You cannot apply if:

• You are not a bonafide farmer of the state or have no cultivable land at all.
• You are a dealer or trader buying bio-pesticides or sprayers for resale. Input dealers are a separate client category in the department's Citizen Charter and are licensed, not subsidised, under this head.
• You want chemical pesticide supplied free. The free distribution is limited to bio-pesticides and IPM tools; the 50% subsidy is on the equipment.

There is no income ceiling, no age limit, no minimum landholding and no category reservation published for this scheme. Selection among eligible applicants is on a first come, first served basis subject to availability of materials, a phrase the department repeats, and one worth taking literally. Stock in a block office is finite, and an application made in June behaves differently from the same application made in November.

What documents are required?

The Citizen Charter records that bonafide farmers may apply "in prescribed forms or in plain paper (if the prescribed form is not available)", and that prescribed forms can be downloaded from megagriculture.gov.in. For this scheme head the department's own instruction is plain paper.

How to apply for the Plant Protection and IPM scheme

1. Identify what you need. Free bio-pesticides and traps, a subsidised sprayer, or both. Naming the crop and the pest in the application helps the block office match the right bio-agent to your field.
2. Write a plain-paper application addressed to the District Agriculture Officer (DAO) of your district. State your name, village, C&RD Block, the land you cultivate and what you are asking for.
3. Submit it through the Agriculture Development Officer (ADO) of your C&RD Block or Agriculture Circle. Meghalaya has 39 CD Blocks and 16 Agriculture Circles, so an ADO is within reach of most villages. The Sub-Divisional Agricultural Officer of your sub-division and the District Training Officer at Tura or Shillong are the other routes the department accepts for this scheme.
4. Ask for the receipt entry number in the office register. Because selection is first come, first served, that register entry is what fixes your place in the queue.
5. Collect the free items when called, bio-pesticides, fly traps, sticky traps, baffle traps or light traps, depending on what the block has in stock.
6. Pay your half for equipment. Sprayers and plant protection equipment are sold at 50% subsidy, so you pay the remaining 50% at the time of purchase and take the receipt.

There is no online application for this scheme head and no application fee. Nobody is entitled to charge you a commission for getting your name onto the list.

How much is the benefit worth?

The department publishes the entitlement in two parts:

• Free distribution of bio-pesticides and other IPM tools; fly traps, sticky traps, baffle traps, light traps. There is no cost to the farmer at all.
• 50% subsidy on the sale of plant protection equipment, you pay half the price the department has procured the item at.

The department has not published a per-farmer ceiling, a unit cost table or an annual limit for this scheme head, so the rupee value depends on the equipment rate fixed for the year and on stock at your block. Ask the ADO for the current year's rate list before you commit to buying, that figure is set locally and is not on the website.

What IPM tools does the department distribute?

The four trap types the department names are each aimed at a different problem:

• Fly traps, for fruit flies, which damage cucurbits, guava and citrus in Meghalaya's warmer valleys.
• Sticky traps, yellow and blue sheets that catch whitefly, aphids and thrips before a population builds.
• Baffle traps — a physical interception trap, useful where a spray schedule would be impractical on a slope.
• Light traps, for night-flying moths, which lets a farmer see what is emerging before deciding whether any treatment is needed at all.

Alongside the traps, the department supplies bio-pesticides and bio-agents. The agents themselves are produced under the department's separate Bio Control Laboratory and Pesticides Testing Laboratory scheme, which raises Trichoderma, Trichogramma and similar organisms for free distribution. Applying under both heads at the same ADO office is the sensible move.

How to check on your application

There is no online tracking for this scheme head, so status-checking is done in person:

1. Return to the ADO office with the entry number from the receipt register and ask where your application stands.
2. Escalate to the Sub-Divisional Agricultural Officer of your sub-division: Meghalaya has 11 agriculture sub-divisions; if the block office has no answer.
3. Write to the District Agriculture Officer of your district. The DAO is the officer the application was addressed to in the first place and holds the district allocation.
4. Approach the District Training Officer at Tura or Shillong, who is separately named under "whom to contact" for this scheme.

District offices are open 10.00 AM to 5.00 PM in summer and 10.00 AM to 4.30 PM in winter.

Common reasons applications do not get served

• Stock ran out. The department's own qualifier: "subject to availability of materials", is the single commonest reason. The fix is to apply again early in the next financial year rather than to appeal.
• No land proof attached. Much of Meghalaya's land is held under community and clan tenure without a patta; a certificate from the village headman is the document block offices normally accept in that situation.
• Application filed in the wrong wing. This is an agriculture scheme, so it goes to the Agriculture Development Officer. Horticulture scheme applications go to the Horticulture Development Officer, and papers filed with the wrong wing get delayed.
• The request is vague. "Please give pesticide" is harder to act on than "half a hectare of tomato in Umsning block, whitefly damage, requesting sticky traps and a knapsack sprayer".
• Asking for chemical pesticide. The scheme distributes bio-pesticides. A request for a chemical product will not be met under this head.

Help and grievance redressal

• Director of Agriculture, Cleve Colony, Government Fruit Garden, Shillong 793003 to telephone (0364) 2222460, fax (0364) 2223228, email agri-meg@nic.in
• Agriculture Information Officer, Directorate of Agriculture; telephone (0364) 2229127, email aio-agri-meg@nic.in
• District Agricultural Officer of your district, in office hours
• District Training Officer, Upper Shillong, Tura or Jowai
• Kisan Call Centre, toll free 1800-180-1551, 6.00 AM to 10.00 PM daily including Sunday
• 1917 iTEAMS: dial 1917 free for agro-advisory, including advice on pests and diseases
• Online grievances. The state grievance portal at mii.nic.in

The Citizen Charter of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare states that grievances may be given in writing to the concerned District Agricultural Officer during office hours or directly to the Director of Agriculture at the Shillong headquarters, and that online grievances can be filed on the state grievance portal.