Soil Health Card Scheme

It’s a Government of India scheme that tests a farmer’s own field for 12 soil parameters and hands back a report — the nutrient status of that plot, plus a crop-wise recommendation on the fertiliser, bio-fertiliser and organic amendments to apply. It was launched on 19 February 2015 and now runs as the “Soil Health & Fertility” component of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.

Yes. There is no fee to the farmer. The central government pays ₹190 per sample to the state government, which covers collection, testing, card generation and distribution.

The scheme’s stated cycle is once every two years per holding, so the next card can show how your soil has changed.

Macro-nutrients Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium and Sulphur; micro-nutrients Zinc, Iron, Copper, Manganese and Boron; and pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC) and Organic Carbon (OC).

Contact your District or Block Agriculture Officer to check if your area is scheduled for sampling under the state’s Annual Action Plan. An authorised agent then visits your field, geo-tags the plot and draws the sample; the card is generated after lab testing.

A trained person — staff of the state Department of Agriculture, an outsourced agency, or students from agricultural/science colleges — draws it from a depth of 15–20 cm using a V-shaped cut at four corners and the centre of the field, then mixes and bags it.

After the Rabi or Kharif harvest, or whenever there is no standing crop in the field.

The card tells you the fertiliser, bio-fertiliser and soil-amendment dose your specific plot needs for the crop you’re growing — follow those quantities instead of a flat, one-size-fits-all dose.

Yes — the SHC Mobile App is used by field agents to geo-tag the plot and collect the sample; each sample gets a unique QR code linking it to its test result on the portal.

From 2022–23 it has been merged into the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) as a component named “Soil Health & Fertility”.

It was launched on 19 February 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Suratgarh, Rajasthan — the same year the UN marked as the International Year of Soils.

Over 25 crore cards had been distributed as of July 2025, generated through a network of 8,272 soil testing laboratories (static, mobile, mini and village-level) across the country.

The Ministry has documented individual cases — for instance a farmer in Nalanda district, Bihar, whose demonstration plot yielded about 16% more (32 quintals/hectare vs his usual 27.5 quintals/hectare) after following the card’s organic-amendment and fertiliser recommendations. That is one documented example, not a published national average.

Call the Kisan Call Centre toll-free helpline 1800-180-1551 (also reachable as 1551), open 6 am–10 pm every day in 22 languages, or raise a ticket at the Soil Health Card portal’s support desk.

Sampling rolls out district-by-district under each state’s Annual Action Plan. Ask your Block or District Agriculture Officer when your area is scheduled — there’s no separate individual online application that bypasses this.