Agriculture Infrastructure Fund

AIF is a central sector scheme mobilising a ₹1 lakh crore medium-to-long-term debt financing facility for post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets, such as warehouses, cold stores, silos and processing units, through interest subvention and credit guarantee support on bank loans.

It is a loan from a bank, NBFC or cooperative bank. The government does not hand out cash — it pays 3% per annum of the interest (on the first ₹2 crore, for up to 7 years) and the CGTMSE guarantee fee so the loan can be sanctioned collateral-free up to ₹2 crore. The borrower still repays the principal and the rest of the interest.

Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), marketing cooperative societies and their federations; Farmer Producer Organisations and FPO federations; Self Help Group and JLG federations; multipurpose cooperative societies; agri-entrepreneurs and start-ups; individual farmers investing in an eligible facility; and state/central agencies, local bodies or APMCs, including PPP projects they sponsor.

Only if they are setting up or co-owning an eligible post-harvest facility (for example, a cold store or processing unit) with a bankable project report. A smallholder who only grows crops and is not creating such an asset is not a direct applicant — they benefit indirectly as a member of a PACS or FPO that takes up the project.

The central government pays 3% per annum of the interest on loans up to ₹2 crore per project, for a maximum of 7 years from the date of first disbursement. On loans above ₹2 crore, the subvention still applies only to the first ₹2 crore.

Eligible borrowers get a credit guarantee under the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) scheme on loans up to ₹2 crore, with no collateral or third-party guarantee required. The government pays the CGTMSE guarantee fee on the borrower’s behalf.

The moratorium on principal repayment is between 6 months and a maximum of 2 years from first disbursement. The overall repayment period, including that moratorium, runs up to 7 years — the exact schedule is set by the lending bank based on the project’s cash flows.

Post-harvest management infrastructure — warehouses, silos, cold stores and cold chain, packaging and assaying units, sorting/grading units, ripening chambers, reefer vans and other logistics facilities, and primary/secondary processing units — and community farming assets such as custom hiring centres, seed processing units, nurseries and tissue-culture units, smart/precision agriculture infrastructure, and PM-KUSUM-linked solar power plants.

AIF does not fund general crop cultivation, input purchase or working capital. It also will not fund a cost component that has already drawn a capital subsidy from another central or state scheme for the same item.

Lending institutions typically require a minimum owner contribution of 10% of the project cost, with the balance financed by the loan.

Register on the AIF portal (agriinfra.dac.gov.in) with your mobile number and Aadhaar, prepare and upload a Detailed Project Report using the scheme’s DPR templates, and select a participating lending institution. The application is routed to that bank for appraisal and sanction — a Project Management Unit is available for handholding support.

Scheduled commercial banks, cooperative banks, Regional Rural Banks, small finance banks, the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) and NBFCs are all participating lending institutions under AIF.

According to the official FAQs, sanction should normally not take more than about 60 days once a complete application with DPR is submitted, though this depends on the lending bank’s own appraisal process.

The facility continues to be operational, with disbursements sanctioned across lakhs of projects nationwide. Exact sanctioned and disbursed amounts change frequently — check the live dashboard on agriinfra.dac.gov.in for the latest figures.

For portal or application support, write to [email protected]; for interest-subvention claim queries, lending institutions can write to [email protected]. State-level Project Management Unit coordinators are also listed on the AIF portal’s Contact Us page.