Uttar Pradesh Uthle Nalkoop Free Boring Scheme (Shallow Tube Well Free Boring)

What is the Uttar Pradesh Uthle Nalkoop Free Boring Scheme?

Uttar Pradesh Uthle Nalkoop Free Boring Scheme; commonly called the UP free boring yojana or nishulk boring yojana, is the Minor Irrigation Department's oldest running farmer scheme, in operation since February 1985. The scheme installs a shallow tube well, roughly 30 metres deep, on a small or marginal farmer's own field, and pays a grant towards the boring, the pump set and the underground or surface pipe that carries water to the field.

"Uthle nalkoop" simply means shallow tube well. Uttar Pradesh's Minor Irrigation Department divides its tube well work into three depth bands, and the depth decides which scheme applies:

The shallow scheme is the one that reaches the largest number of farmers. The Minor Irrigation Department's own online application dashboard records over 11 lakh applications received in the shallow tube well category, against about 42,000 for medium-deep and 21,700 for deep tube wells. That ratio tells you where the scheme's real weight sits.

The purpose is straightforward: a farmer with two acres and no assured water irrigates once from the canal or the rain and takes one crop. The same farmer with a working shallow tube well irrigates on demand and takes two or three. The scheme is a groundwater-access programme rather than a cash-benefit programme.

Who is eligible for the shallow tube well free boring scheme?

You can apply if:

• You are a permanent resident of Uttar Pradesh and a farmer.
• Agricultural land is recorded in your own name. Land in a father's or brother's name does not qualify the applicant.
• You hold at least 0.2 hectare of agricultural land. SC and ST farmers are exempt from this minimum.
• You fall in the small farmer band (holding roughly 1 to 2 hectares) or the marginal farmer band (roughly 0.2 to 1 hectare), or you belong to the SC or ST category.
• You are already registered under PM-KISAN or on the state's transparent farmer service portal.
• Your field sits in a development block where groundwater development is still permitted.

You cannot apply if:

• You have already received benefit under any other government boring scheme. The scheme is a once-per-farmer benefit, and the Rs 100 undertaking you sign is specifically about this.
• Your development block is classified as over-exploited, critical or semi-critical for groundwater. The department excludes these blocks precisely because adding shallow tube wells there would worsen an already falling water table. This is not a paperwork problem you can fix. It is a geographic exclusion, and a farmer in such a block should look at drip and sprinkler irrigation subsidies instead.
• You are a large farmer holding more than the small-farmer ceiling. Larger holdings are directed towards the medium-deep and deep tube well schemes, where the farmer contributes 50% of the cost.
• The land is not in your name, or you are a tenant or sharecropper without recorded title.
• You are not a resident of Uttar Pradesh.

How much money does the scheme give?

Note the ordering, which surprises people: the marginal farmer gets more than the small farmer. That is deliberate. A marginal farmer with under one hectare has less capacity to fund the balance, so the state's share is larger. SC and ST farmers sit at the top of the scale and also escape the minimum-land condition.

Taken together, a general-category applicant is looking at roughly Rs 12,500 to Rs 16,000 of assistance, and an SC or ST applicant at up to about Rs 22,000, depending on whether pump and pipe components are sanctioned along with the boring. These are ceilings, not fixed payouts — the sanction is the lower of the actual cost and the ceiling.

How to apply for the UP free boring scheme

1. Complete your PM-KISAN or state farmer registration first. The boring application asks for that registration number and will not proceed without it.
2. Assemble the land papers. Get a current Khatauni / Form 61-B extract showing the holding in your own name, and check that the area on it puts you in the category you are claiming. A wrong category claim is the commonest cause of rework.
3. Apply online through the Minor Irrigation Department's application portal (miuponline.in, reachable from minorirrigationup.gov.in), choosing the shallow tube well category. Fill in your Aadhaar, land record details, category, bank account and mobile number, and note the application number shown on submission. If the online window is closed. The department has at times displayed a notice that online application is temporarily unavailable; do not submit repeatedly; use the offline route instead.
4. Or apply offline by submitting the filled form with your documents to the Junior Engineer or boring technician of your development block. This is the officer who actually surveys and executes the work, so an offline file lodged with them is not a lesser route.
5. Get the site surveyed. The department's technician visits the field to confirm that the site is suitable, that no existing tube well conflicts with it, and that the depth falls in the shallow band.
6. Wait for the sanction against the district target. Selections are made against a district-level annual target, so applications lodged early in the financial year have a better chance than those lodged in February and March.
7. Get the boring done through the departmental agency and complete the pump set purchase, submitting the quotation and ISI report if pump assistance was sanctioned.
8. Receive the grant in your bank account after the work is verified.

How do you check your application status?

• Log in to the Minor Irrigation Department's online portal with your application number and check the current stage.
• Ask the block Junior Engineer or boring technician directly. Because the survey and execution happen at block level, this officer usually knows the real position before the portal reflects it.
• Approach the district-level office of the Minor Irrigation Department, usually the Executive Engineer, for applications that have been pending beyond a season.

Why do applications get rejected?

• Land not in the applicant's name. The single most frequent rejection.
• Block is over-exploited or critical, so no new shallow tube well can be sanctioned there.
• Previous benefit taken under this or another boring scheme, discovered at verification.
• Category mismatch: claiming the marginal-farmer slab with a holding that the 61-B shows as larger.
• Missing PM-KISAN or state farmer registration.
• Bank account details that do not match the applicant's name, which stops the transfer even after sanction.
• Site unsuitable on survey, for example where the water table is too deep for a shallow boring to yield reliably. In such a case the correct next step is to apply under the medium-deep tube well scheme instead of re-applying here.

Where do you get help?

• Minor Irrigation Department helpline numbers: 0522-2286627, 0522-2286601, 0522-2286670.
• Block-level: Junior Engineer / boring technician of your development block.
• District-level: Executive Engineer, Minor Irrigation Department.
• Grievance: the Uttar Pradesh integrated grievance system at jansunwai.up.nic.in, where a complaint gets a tracking number and a routed reply.

The application and the grant are free. No agent has authority to charge a fee to "get your boring sanctioned", and the boring work itself is executed by or under the department, not by a private contractor of the farmer's choosing.