"Sugarcane Nursery Premium" Sub-Scheme of the "Crop Production Technology" Scheme

What is the Sugarcane Nursery Premium in Puducherry?

The "Sugarcane Nursery Premium" is a sub-scheme of the "Crop Production Technology" scheme run by the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Union Territory of Puducherry. The Department pays a nursery premium for raising seed material sufficient to plant one hectare of sugarcane: 10 ares of nursery, which is 25 cents of land, at Rs 4,000.

Sugarcane is not raised from botanical seed. It is planted from setts, short lengths cut from mature cane, each carrying one or more buds. If a grower cuts setts out of the ordinary commercial crop, the planting material carries whatever pests, diseases and varietal mixing that field happened to have, and germination is uneven. A dedicated seed nursery avoids all of that. The Sugarcane Nursery Premium exists to make raising that dedicated nursery worth a grower's while, because the block of land under nursery earns no cane revenue of its own.

The Department's own citizen's charter lists the premium as component four under Crop Production Technology at the Office of the Additional Director of Agriculture (T&V), Thattanchavady. It sits alongside a set of related back-ended incentives for the same region, which is useful context because most cane growers qualify for more than one of them:

• Back-ended subsidy to paddy growers at Rs 4,000 per hectare
• Assistance to Karaikal region farmers for direct sowing of paddy at Rs 1,500 per hectare for dry ploughing
• Back-ended investment subsidy for millet cultivation in the Sornavari season at Rs 3,000 per hectare
• Cash incentives for fodder cultivation at Rs 12,500 per hectare
• Micronutrient mixtures, soil amendments, DAP for foliar spray, plant growth regulators and plant protection chemicals at 50% subsidy for general farmers and 75% for Scheduled Caste farmers
• Paddy seed at Rs 10 per kg for general farmers, with 75% subsidy for Scheduled Caste farmers
• Hybrid seed of paddy, millets and cotton, green manure seed, organic manure, neem cake, bio-fertilisers, botanical and bio-pesticides and bio-agents at 75% subsidy for general farmers and 100% for Scheduled Caste farmers

The local name most growers and Agricultural Officers use is simply the karumbu nursery premium, and applications are handled at the Uzhavar Udhaviyagam, the farmers' help centre network the Department maintains across the Puducherry region.

Who is eligible for the sugarcane nursery premium?

You can claim the premium if:

• You are a resident or native of the Union Territory of Puducherry.
• You are a farmer cultivating in the Puducherry region.
• You hold a Farmers Identity Card issued by the Department of Agriculture, or, if no card has been issued to you yet, authenticated land records such as a sale deed, partition deed, gift deed or will.
• You are actually raising a sugarcane seed nursery on the extent claimed, not simply growing a commercial cane crop.

You cannot apply if:

• You are not cultivating in the Puducherry region. The Crop Production Technology components are listed by the Department against this region, so growers in Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam must confirm the position with their regional office before assuming the premium is available to them.
• You have neither a Farmers Identity Card nor an authenticated land document to establish the holding and the survey numbers.
• You are a tenant cultivator who cannot produce the required consent or cultivation certificate. The Department requires tenants farming land owned by religious institutions, wakfs, mutts, trusts or municipalities to produce a letter of consent from that institution, and requires tenants generally to produce a cultivation certificate from the landowner or from a joint verification by the Agriculture or Revenue Department.
• You submit after the stipulated period announced for that season's round of applications.

How much money does the scheme pay, and when?

The rate is fixed and simple: Rs 4,000 for 10 ares (25 cents) of nursery, which the Department treats as the seed requirement for one hectare of cane planting. Claims are worked out on a pro-rata basis against the extent actually raised and verified.

Payment is back-ended. The Department's seed and certification wing records the timing plainly: the cane nursery premium is settled after the setts have been distributed to growers from the nursery crop. In practice that means the grower raises the nursery at their own cost, the Agricultural Officer verifies the standing nursery in the field, the setts move out to planting, and only then does the file move to payment. Money is released through Direct Benefit Transfer into the beneficiary's bank account after expenditure sanction, which is why the bank passbook page is one of the enclosures.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the Sugarcane Nursery Premium offline

1. Watch for the call for applications. The Department publicises the issue and receipt of applications for each crop and season. Advertisements appear in local Tamil dailies and notices go up at the Uzhavar Udhaviyagams.
2. Collect the prescribed form during office hours from the Agricultural Officer at your Uzhavar Udhaviyagam, or from the Office of the Deputy Director of Agriculture (Inputs), Thattanchavady, the Deputy Director of Agriculture (T&V) at Bahour, Villianur or Madagadipet, or the Joint Director of Agriculture (T&V) at Bahour or Villianur. You may also print the form from agri.py.gov.in.
3. Fill in every mandatory field, paste the passport-sized photograph, sign across it if the form asks, and attach self-attested copies of the Farmers Identity Card or land document, the bank passbook page and, if you are a tenant, the consent letter or cultivation certificate.
4. Submit the signed form with the enclosures to the same authority, within the period stipulated in the announcement for that season.
5. Collect your acknowledgement. On receipt, the office makes the entry in its application receipt register and assigns a unique number that identifies your file in all further correspondence and doubles as the acknowledgement of submission.
6. Allow the field inspection. The Agricultural Officer verifies the nursery on the ground and records progress in the register maintained for the purpose.

How to apply online through the e-District portal

1. Visit edistrict.py.gov.in, the Government of Puducherry e-District portal, and click Login at the top right of the home page.
2. Click Register a New Membership and complete the registration page with your username, password, full name, email address, current address, gender, date of birth and mobile number. Agree to the declaration, enter the captcha and click Signup.
3. Log back in with your username, password and captcha. The next screen lists Government of Puducherry schemes department-wise.
4. Open this scheme under the Department of Agriculture to reach its online application form, complete every field marked with a red asterisk, and upload the mandatory documents, self-attested where required.
5. Tick the declaration that the details are true and correct, submit, and note the application number. It is also sent to your registered mobile number and email address.
6. Track the file on the portal's Track Application page at edistrict.py.gov.in/User/TrackApplication.aspx.

How do I check the status of my claim?

Offline applicants quote the unique number from the receipt register and follow up with the Agricultural Officer at the Uzhavar Udhaviyagam where the form was filed. Online applicants use the application number on the e-District Track Application page. Because the Department settles the premium only after the setts have gone out from the nursery, a claim can legitimately sit pending for the length of a nursery cycle, so a status of "under process" during that period is normal rather than a sign that something has gone wrong.

Why claims get rejected, and how to fix them

• Filed after the stipulated period. The Department calls applications season-wise and the closing date is applied as announced. File early in the window.
• No Farmers Identity Card and no acceptable land document. Get the card issued through your Uzhavar Udhaviyagam, or enclose the sale, partition or gift deed or the will.
• Tenant claims without consent or a cultivation certificate. Obtain the landowner's certificate, or the institution's consent letter where the land belongs to a trust, wakf, mutt or municipality.
• Extent claimed does not match the field. The Agricultural Officer's inspection governs the pro-rata calculation, so claiming more than the nursery actually raised only reduces the sanction.
• Bank details wrong or account not active. DBT fails on a dormant account or a mismatched name, and the file then waits for a corrected passbook page.

Where to raise a grievance

The Department's published grievance route for the Crop Production Technology components is the Additional Director of Agriculture (Training and Visit), Agricultural Complex, Thattanchavady, Puducherry 605 009, reachable on 0413-2247852. The Director of Agriculture can be contacted on 0413-2336977. Karaikal growers should approach the Additional Director of Agriculture, Karaikal, on 04368-230679; Mahe on 0490-2334525; Yanam on 0884-2321922.

The Department's citizen's charter, grievance redress note and list of responsibility centres are all published on agri.py.gov.in. The Department also cautions that its scheme patterns are subject to revision by the Government without notice, so confirm the current rate with the Additional Director of Agriculture (T&V) before you commit land to a nursery.