Punjab News Daily
Chandigarh, May 3

In a significant push to promote crop diversification by weaning the state farmers away from water-guzzling paddy, Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann led Punjab government has decided to expand of its Kharif maize diversification scheme from six to 16 districts for the 2026-27 season, with a financial incentive of Rs 17,500 per hectare.

The decision follows an “encouraging response” to a pilot project implemented in six districts during 2025-26, said Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian, while terming the expansion a “decisive step” to arrest the state’s depleting groundwater levels by encouraging farmers to shift from paddy to kharif maize cultivation.

Gurmeet Singh Khudian informed that the scheme targets 20,000 hectares (50000 acres) of kharif maize across Amritsar, Bathinda, Fatehgarh Sahib, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Moga, Patiala, Pathankot, Rupnagar, Sangrur, SAS Nagar, SBS Nagar and Tarn Taran. Farmers will receive a subsidy of Rs 17,500 per hectare the same as last year. Of this, Rs 4,500 will be released upon submission of input bills at the block agriculture office, while the remaining Rs 13,000 will be paid in two instalments after mandatory geo-tagged crop verification, he added.

Urging the state farmers to adopt the kharif maize cultivation to save the precious groundwater resources, the Agriculture Minister said that interested farmers can register on the government’s https://agrimachinerypb.com and a mandatory J-form and geo-tagging of the field will be required to confirm the applicant grew paddy last year and is switching to maize this year.

Khudian further shared that verification will be done in two phases through the Unnat Kisan Portal- first from July 15 to 25, followed by the second from August 5 to 15, 2026. After each verification, the district Chief Agriculture Officer will release Rs 9,500 and Rs 7,500 per hectare, respectively.

The entire process- from registration to verification- has been digitised to ensure transparency and timely disbursal of subsidy to eligible and right beneficiaries seamlessly, the Agriculture Minister emphasised.