Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) - Uttarakhand

What is Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana in Uttarakhand?

Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) is the Government of India's main organic farming programme, implemented in Uttarakhand by the Department of Agriculture, Government of Uttarakhand, working with the Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board (Uttarakhand Jaivik Utpad Parishad), the Horticulture Department, the Centre for Aromatic Plants and the Silk Department. It now runs as a component of the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (PM-RKVY).

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, PKVY provides end-to-end support to organic farmers; from production to processing, certification and marketing; in a cluster-based approach. The primary focus is to form organic clusters and help them build a supply chain, rather than to subsidise one farmer's inputs in isolation.

Uttarakhand is a natural fit. Much of the state's hill farming has never been chemical-intensive in the first place, holdings are small, and the department's own position is that organic methods are more profitable in rainfed areas because they cut the cost of production while making the produce competitive. The Uttarakhand Department of Agriculture reports that PKVY has run in 3,900 clusters across its first and second phases in the state.

What the department does inside a PKVY cluster

• Cluster formation and group registration.
• Seminars, farmer training and exposure visits.
• Distribution and on-farm production of organic inputs.
• PGS certification of the cluster's produce.
• Marketing support for the organic produce.

How much does PKVY pay a farmer in Uttarakhand?

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, states are provided financial assistance of Rs 31,500 per hectare for 3 years in the organic clusters. That total is split as follows:

The number that matters to an individual is the Rs 15,000 per hectare over three years credited by DBT. The remaining Rs 16,500 per hectare is real money too, but it is spent on the cluster's training, certification and market linkage, not handed over in cash.

Nationally, the Ministry records that since 2015-16 PKVY has brought 14.99 lakh hectares under organic farming through 52,289 clusters involving 25.30 lakh farmers.

Who is eligible for PKVY in Uttarakhand?

You can join if:

• You are a farmer in Uttarakhand with land you cultivate, and your gram panchayat has a PKVY cluster or one is being formed.
• You are willing to farm organically for the full three-year conversion cycle and stop using chemical fertiliser and pesticide on the enrolled area.
• You accept PGS-India peer appraisal; other farmers in your cluster will inspect your field and you will inspect theirs.
• You have an Aadhaar-linked bank account so the input assistance can be paid by DBT.

You cannot apply, or you are not eligible, if:

• You want to apply as an individual outside a cluster. PKVY assistance is released against a cluster, not a single applicant, so a standalone application has no route.
• Your land is outside any cluster area notified for the current phase, in which case you must wait for a cluster to be formed in your panchayat.
• You are not prepared to give up chemical inputs on the enrolled area, the PGS standard does not allow partial compliance on the registered plot.
• You want third party organic certification through this scheme. PKVY funds PGS certification; the separate RKVY-RAFTAAR organic project in Uttarakhand, started in 2017-18, is the one where the Agriculture Department and the Uttarakhand Organic Products Council do third party certification.

What documents are required?

How to apply for PKVY in Uttarakhand

1. Ask at your block agriculture office whether a PKVY cluster exists or is being formed in your gram panchayat, and who the implementing agency is. The Department of Agriculture's stated route for its organic programmes is "please visit your nearby agriculture office".
2. Join the cluster group and register your plot area with the group. PKVY works on clusters, so this step is the actual application.
3. Submit your Aadhaar, land record and bank passbook to the implementing agency, and sign the consent to follow PGS-India organic standards.
4. Attend the training and exposure programmes the cluster runs. Training and capacity building are separately funded at Rs 9,000 per hectare and attendance is part of the compliance record.
5. Take part in PGS peer appraisal — inspect other members' fields and let yours be inspected, and keep the field diary the group asks for.
6. Receive the Rs 15,000 per hectare organic input assistance in instalments by DBT into your bank account across the three-year cycle.
7. Register the group and its produce on the national organic portal jaivikkheti.in, which is where PGS-certified produce is listed for buyers.

How does the cluster and certification process work?

PKVY's unit is the cluster, and the Ministry's national norm is a group of farmers covering about 20 hectares. Inside that cluster the certification is done through PGS-India, the Participatory Guarantee System. A peer-review model where the farmers themselves inspect and vouch for one another against a documented standard, with the implementing agency as facilitator. This is why PKVY can certify smallholders at a cost third party certification could never reach on a half-hectare terraced field in Chamoli or Bageshwar.

Uttarakhand runs three related organic streams that are easy to confuse:

• PKVY; cluster-based, PGS certification, Rs 31,500 per hectare over 3 years, 3,900 clusters in phases one and two.
• RKVY-RAFTAAR organic project; started 2017-18, uses third party certification by the Agriculture Department and the Uttarakhand Organic Products Council, with one master trainer per development block, vermicompost and NADEP pit construction, training, exposure visits and marketing.
• Namami Gange organic clusters: funded 90 percent centre and 10 percent state, promoting PGS-certified organic farming in gram panchayats in the Ganga basin, with training, exposure tours, organic input distribution, brand building and participation in local and national fairs.

A farmer's plot sits in one of these streams, not all three, so it is worth asking the block office which stream your cluster belongs to before comparing benefit figures with a neighbour.

Why PKVY benefits get held up

• Cluster not yet formed in the panchayat, so there is nothing to enrol into.
• Land record not matching the area declared for the cluster.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, which stops the DBT credit.
• Non-compliance found at peer appraisal, for example chemical input use on the registered plot, which can suspend the PGS certification for that farmer.
• Incomplete field records. PGS depends on documentation, and a missing field diary can hold up the group's certification, not just one member's.

Key dates

PKVY has no fixed public last date to apply. Enrolment happens when a cluster is formed in a gram panchayat and the implementing agency registers members, and the three-year conversion cycle then runs from that point. The practical step is to ask the block agriculture office when the next phase of cluster formation is planned for your area.

Help and grievance redressal

• Kisaan helpline (Department of Agriculture, Uttarakhand): 18001801551
• CM helpline: 1905
• Directorate of Agriculture, Uttarakhand: Krishi Bhawan, Nanda-Ki-Chowki, Premnagar, Dehradun 248007; 0135-2972421 or 0135-2972422; email dir-agri-ua[at]nic[dot]in
• Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board, for questions about certification and marketing of the cluster's produce

Enrolment in a PKVY cluster is free. No agent can add your name to a cluster for a fee, and the input assistance is paid only into the farmer's own bank account.

How to check your application status

PKVY does not run on an individual online-application tracking system the way a scholarship or pension scheme does, because a farmer's "application" is really membership in a cluster that the state agriculture department and Regional Council manage together. Still, there are real ways to check where things stand.

1. Ask your cluster's group leader or facilitator first. Each PGS cluster has a lead farmer or field-level facilitator appointed by the implementing agency; they hold the group's enrolment and inspection records and are usually the fastest source of an update on registration, inspection scheduling, or DBT status.
2. Check your entry on the PGS-India portal (pgsindia-ncof.gov.in). Once a cluster is registered, farmer and group records, including peer-inspection status and PGS-Organic certification stage, are logged on this portal by the Regional Council. A farmer or the group facilitator can look up the cluster's record there rather than each member needing an individual login.
3. Visit or call the block/district agriculture office that registered your cluster. Since enrolment and fund release both route through this office, they can confirm whether your cluster's paperwork, land verification, or Aadhaar-seeded bank details are complete and whether a DBT tranche has been processed for the current year.
4. Check your bank account and Aadhaar-DBT status directly. Because assistance moves as direct benefit transfer, the most concrete sign of progress is a credit in your Aadhaar-seeded account; if a payment cycle has passed with no credit, that is the cue to follow up with the block office rather than wait indefinitely.
5. Use the Kisan Call Centre (1800-180-1551) for general guidance if you cannot reach the local office, though for cluster-specific status the district or block agriculture office and your group facilitator remain the primary contacts.

Because there is no single national reference number issued to each farmer, keeping a copy of your cluster registration details and the facilitator's contact makes every follow-up faster.

Common reasons for rejection

PKVY rarely produces a formal "application rejected" letter to an individual farmer, since enrolment happens at the cluster level; what actually happens is that a farmer is left out of a cluster, a cluster's registration stalls, or a member does not receive their DBT share. The real, recurring reasons are:

• No cluster exists in the farmer's area yet. PKVY is demand-driven and tied to each state's annual action plan; if the state has not sanctioned a new cluster in a farmer's block for that year, there is simply nothing to apply to. Fix: ask the block agriculture office whether a cluster is planned, and if not, ask what is needed to propose one with neighbouring farmers.
• Land is not contiguous enough to fit a viable cluster. PGS clusters are built around a contiguous block of roughly 20 hectares; scattered or isolated landholdings that cannot be grouped with neighbouring farms are typically left out. Fix: coordinate with adjoining farmers before approaching the department so the proposed area meets the contiguity expectation.
• Land records do not match the applicant. If the khasra/khatauni does not clearly show the applicant as the cultivator or owner of the plot being enrolled, the implementing agency cannot include that land in the cluster. Fix: get land records updated or mutated before enrolment, or bring supporting documents (lease/consent) where the applicant is a verified tenant-cultivator.
• Bank account is not Aadhaar-seeded, or Aadhaar and bank KYC details do not match. Since assistance is paid as DBT, a mismatch between the Aadhaar number and the bank account's KYC details causes payments to fail even after a farmer is otherwise enrolled. Fix: get the bank account Aadhaar-seeded and confirm the name and details match Aadhaar exactly before the cluster's payment cycle.
• Farmer does not participate in PGS peer inspections or record-keeping. PGS certification depends on mutual verification; a member who skips inspections of other farms or keeps no field/input records can be excluded from certification and the associated benefit, even while remaining nominally part of the cluster. Fix: attend scheduled peer inspections and maintain the basic input/practice diary the Regional Council asks for.
• Non-adoption of the organic package of practices. Continuing to use chemical fertilisers or pesticides after joining a cluster breaks PGS-Organic conformity for that plot, which can disqualify the individual farmer's produce from certification and reduce their share of cluster benefit. Fix: follow the organic input plan the cluster and facilitator set out, and flag any transition difficulty early rather than after an inspection finds a lapse.
• Confusing PKVY with a personal cash-grant scheme. Some farmers approach the scheme expecting an individual online form and a direct cash payout; because no such channel exists, they may give up or fall for unofficial middlemen who promise fast individual enrolment for a fee. Fix: work only through the recognised state agriculture department, block office or Regional Council, none of which should charge farmers a fee to join a cluster.