What subsidy rate can I get under AMI, the main ISAM sub-scheme?

AMI subsidy is a back-ended capital subsidy linked to a bank / NABARD term loan. Standard rates are 25% of eligible project cost for general beneficiaries and 33.33% for Northeast States, hilly areas, SC / ST beneficiaries, women, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and registered cooperatives. Storage projects (godowns, silos, cold storages) in the Northeast attract the higher slab. Ceilings apply on a per-project basis and are project-category-specific (godowns, grading units, rural haats, mobile pre-cooling units, etc.). The subsidy is capitalised in a subsidy-reserve-fund account with the lending bank and released back-ended after satisfactory project completion and joint monitoring inspection — see the current DMI-issued AMI operational guidelines on dmi.gov.in for exact ceilings by project type and beneficiary category.

Who can apply for an AMI subsidy under ISAM?

Individual farmers and group of farmers, Agri-preneurs (including agri-graduates), Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) registered under Companies Act / Co-operative Societies Act, registered Cooperative Societies and their federations, Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), State agencies including State Agricultural Marketing Boards, State Warehousing Corporations, State Civil Supplies Corporations and APMCs, Central Warehousing Corporation, private entrepreneurs and companies, and NGOs — subject to a bankable Detailed Project Report (DPR), techno-commercial appraisal by NABARD / the lending bank and adherence to CIPHET / BIS design norms for the asset type. See our /dmi guide for the DMI-side administrative flow and the current sub-scheme guidelines on dmi.gov.in.

How is ISAM different from PMKSY, Operation Greens and e-NAM?

ISAM is DMI's Central Sector marketing scheme — it funds storage, grading, packing, rural-haat and cold-chain assets with a back-ended capital subsidy (AMI), runs the Agmarknet price portal (MRIN), administers the Agmark quality mark under the 1937 Act, funds NIAM Jaipur training, and runs ChAMAN horticulture assessment. PMKSY (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana) is a Ministry of Food Processing Industries scheme with its own cold-chain, mega-food-park, agro-processing-cluster and backward-forward-linkage sub-schemes — often layered on top of ISAM/AMI for larger cold-chain and processing projects. Operation Greens is an MoFPI scheme for TOP-crop (tomato, onion, potato) and later 22 additional fruits & vegetables value-chain infrastructure, price-stabilisation and transport / storage subvention. e-NAM is a Central Sector electronic trading platform operated by SFAC under DA&FW — it builds on the Model APLM Act 2017 (drafted by DMI), on Agmarknet prices and on Agmark grade standards. See /pmksy, /operation-greens and /e-nam for the full contrasts.

When was ISAM launched and by whom?

ISAM was launched during the XII Five Year Plan (2012-17) and became operational as a consolidated Central Sector scheme from 1 April 2014, when seven pre-existing DMI-administered central schemes on marketing infrastructure, market research & information, agri-marketing extension, quality control (Agmark) and grading-facility strengthening were merged into a single umbrella scheme by the then Department of Agriculture & Cooperation (now DA&FW), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. AMI itself is a continuation of the earlier Scheme for Development / Strengthening of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure, Grading & Standardisation, whose Rural Godown component dates back to 2001-02.

Where can I find the current ISAM guidelines, forms and subsidy schedule?

The DMI portal at dmi.gov.in publishes the current ISAM operational guidelines, the AMI subsidy schedule, the list of eligible project types and their unit costs, the sanctioning-authority chart for each beneficiary category, and the Sub-Office-wise field-office directory. NABARD's website (nabard.org) publishes the AMI channelling terms for the NABARD-routed component (state agencies, cooperatives, FPOs), including the subsidy claim workflow and Joint Inspection Committee protocols. State-level ISAM/AMI sanctions, especially for rural haats and cooperative infrastructure, are visible on the respective State Directorate of Agricultural Marketing portals. The Agmarknet portal itself is at agmarknet.gov.in and NIAM Jaipur's training calendar is at ccsniam.gov.in.

ISAM — Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing

The Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) is a Central Sector scheme administered by the Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI), Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India. Formed in 2014 by merging seven pre-existing Central Sector marketing schemes, ISAM is the umbrella under which DMI runs its capital-subsidy programme for post-harvest and marketing infrastructure (AMI), the Agmarknet price portal (MRIN), the Agmark grading system under the 1937 Act, the CCS National Institute of Agricultural Marketing at Jaipur, and the ChAMAN horticulture-crop assessment work.

At a glance

Scheme: Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM).
Type: Central Sector scheme (100% Central funding).
Administered by: Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI), NH-IV, Faridabad, Haryana.
Parent department: Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), agricoop.nic.in.
Launched: 1 April 2014 — merger of seven earlier Central Sector marketing schemes.
Sub-schemes (5): AMI · MRIN (Agmarknet) · Agmark grading & standardisation · CCS NIAM Jaipur · SAGF + ChAMAN.
AMI subsidy: 25% of eligible project cost (general); 33.33% for Northeast, hilly areas, SC / ST, women, FPOs and cooperatives — credit-linked, back-ended.
Channelling agencies: NABARD (state agencies, cooperatives, FPOs); scheduled commercial banks (private entrepreneurs).
Related deep-dives: DMI · Agmark · Agmarknet · e-NAM · PMKSY · Operation Greens · WDRA · 10,000 FPO scheme · All schemes.

Why ISAM was created

Before 2014, DMI ran a scatter of independent Central Sector schemes — a Rural Godown scheme dating from 2001-02, a separate Scheme for Development / Strengthening of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure, Grading & Standardisation, a stand-alone Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN) supporting the Agmarknet portal, a stand-alone Agmark implementation vote, an Agricultural Marketing Extension scheme, a Choudhary Charan Singh NIAM support scheme, and a Strengthening of Agmark Grading Facilities (SAGF) grant to State grading labs. Programme administration, monitoring and budgeting across seven parallel schemes was cumbersome, sub-scale and hard for beneficiaries to navigate. From 1 April 2014, DA&FW consolidated these seven schemes into a single integrated umbrella — the Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing — with a common administrative structure, common monitoring and unified operational guidelines under DMI at Faridabad.

The five ISAM sub-schemes

Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI). The largest sub-scheme by outlay — a credit-linked, back-ended capital subsidy for the creation and modernisation of storage infrastructure (scientific storage godowns, warehouses eligible for WDRA registration) and marketing infrastructure (grading, sorting, packing, primary processing, cold chain, rural haats / Gramin Agricultural Markets — GrAMs). Subsidy is disbursed through NABARD for state agencies, cooperatives and FPOs and through scheduled commercial banks for private entrepreneurs, against a sanctioned term loan. Rates are typically 25% of eligible project cost for general beneficiaries and 33.33% for Northeast, hilly areas, SC/ST, women beneficiaries, FPOs and cooperatives, with higher subsidy for storage projects in the Northeast.
Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN) — Agmarknet. Central Sector sub-component that runs the Agmarknet portal at agmarknet.gov.in — India's largest public dataset of daily APMC arrivals and prices, sourced from more than 3,700 wholesale markets across the country and validated by DMI's Sub-Offices. MRIN funds the portal infrastructure, the network of price-reporting nodes, and the integration with mKisan for daily SMS price alerts to registered farmers on their selected crops and mandis.
Agmark grading and standardisation. The historic statutory pillar — administers the Agmark Certificate of Authorisation (CA) system under the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937 and the General Grading & Marking Rules, 1988. Funds the Central Agmark Laboratory (CAL) at Nagpur and the eleven Regional Agmark Laboratories (RALs) at Amritsar, Bhopal, Byculla (Mumbai), Chennai, Delhi, Guntur, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata and Rajkot; the notification of Agmark commodities and their grade standards; and market-surveillance sampling of Agmark-labelled retail packs.
Choudhary Charan Singh NIAM, Jaipur. The Central Sector training and research pillar — funds the Choudhary Charan Singh National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (CCS NIAM) at Jaipur, the DA&FW's designated centre for capacity-building of State Agricultural Marketing Board officers, APMC secretaries, FPO CEOs and DMI's own field officers on grading, warehousing, e-NAM operation, contract farming and post-harvest management. Portal: ccsniam.gov.in.
Strengthening of Agmark Grading Facilities & ChAMAN. Two smaller Central Sector components: (a) Strengthening of Agmark Grading Facilities (SAGF) — instrumentation and modernisation grants to State Grading Labs to bring them up to CAL/RAL analytical standards; and (b) the ChAMAN (Coordinated programme on Horticulture Assessment and Management using geo-iNformatics) work — geospatial acreage and yield estimation for eight horticulture crops (banana, mango, citrus, potato, onion, tomato, chilli and cabbage) run jointly by DMI, MNCFC and MIDH, with satellite imagery, ground truthing and market-arrivals cross-validation from Agmarknet.

AMI in detail — the capital-subsidy engine

Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI) is the Central Sector back-ended capital subsidy that most farmers, FPOs and rural entrepreneurs know ISAM by. Structurally it is a credit-linked subsidy — the beneficiary must first take a term loan from NABARD (for state agencies, cooperatives and FPOs) or from a scheduled commercial bank / cooperative bank (for private entrepreneurs) to fund the project, and the AMI subsidy is then released back-ended into a Subsidy Reserve Fund account after the project is commissioned and passes a Joint Inspection Committee (JIC) sign-off.

Standard subsidy rates are 25% of eligible project cost for general beneficiaries and 33.33% for Northeast States, hilly areas, SC / ST beneficiaries, women beneficiaries, FPOs and registered cooperatives. Storage projects in the Northeast qualify for the higher slab; project-type-specific ceilings apply and are set out in the current AMI operational guidelines issued by DMI. AMI is one of the few Central Sector capital-subsidy windows that is additive with the PMFME 35% food-processing subsidy (for the marketing-infrastructure slice of a food-processing project) and can sit alongside a Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) loan with its 3% interest subvention, provided the same asset cost is not double-subsidised.

What AMI actually funds — eligible assets

Scientific storage godowns and warehouses. Mandi-side and off-mandi storage godowns of capacity from 50 MT up to 30,000 MT, designed to be WDRA-registration-ready for issuance of Negotiable Warehouse Receipts (eNWRs). Silos, pre-fabricated bag storage, cold storage and controlled-atmosphere storage all qualify subject to Bureau of Indian Standards / CIPHET design norms.
Grading, sorting, packing and primary processing units. Cleaning, sorting, grading, waxing, packing lines and primary processing (dehulling, milling, oil expelling, spice cleaning, dal-milling, fruit-and-vegetable sorting) — the classic post-harvest value-addition layer that turns loose farm-gate produce into a market-ready, Agmark-gradable pack.
Cold chain, ripening chambers and reefer transport. Pack-houses, pre-cooling units, cold storages, ripening chambers, reefer vans and mobile cold rooms — often layered on top of Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) PMKSY cold-chain subsidy where the projects go beyond AMI's marketing-infrastructure scope.
Rural haats / Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs). Upgradation of 22,000-odd rural periodic markets into Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) with paved platforms, drinking water, weighing facilities and grading corners — announced in the Union Budget 2018-19 and integrated with AMI subsidy for capital works undertaken by panchayats, State agencies and FPOs.
Mobile pre-cooling and low-cost onion storage. Cost-appropriate assets for small and marginal farmers — mobile pre-cooling units, low-cost onion storage structures on the NHRDF/MIDH design, hermetic bag storage and small-holder grading corners at the FPO shed level. Explicitly listed in AMI's eligible-asset schedule to bring the subsidy within reach of collective farmer bodies.

How to apply for an AMI subsidy under ISAM

Prepare a bankable Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the asset — capacity, layout, BOM, quotations, land / lease documents, environmental clearance where applicable, and CIPHET / BIS design compliance for storage / cold-chain assets.
Approach the appropriate channelling agency. If you are a State agency, cooperative or FPO, the primary route is NABARD (through the concerned Regional Office). If you are a private entrepreneur, agri-graduate, individual farmer or company, the primary route is a scheduled commercial bank / RRB / cooperative bank.
The bank / NABARD does techno-commercial appraisal and sanctions the term loan. Simultaneously, a Letter of Intent (LoI) / eligibility certificate is issued that reserves AMI subsidy for the project.
Construct the asset, commission it and produce the first CA event (grade a batch, take in first storage lot, run first e-mandi transaction — whichever is applicable to the asset).
A Joint Inspection Committee (JIC) — DMI Sub-Office, NABARD / bank and the State Directorate of Agricultural Marketing — inspects the completed asset, verifies the sanctioned specification and clears the subsidy release into the Subsidy Reserve Fund account with the lender.
The lender adjusts the subsidy back-ended against the term-loan outstanding on completion of the moratorium / from the last few instalments, per the AMI operational guidelines.

MRIN in detail — the Agmarknet price backbone

The Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN) is the Central Sector arm of ISAM that funds agmarknet.gov.in — India's largest public dataset of daily wholesale APMC arrivals and prices, with coverage of 3,700+ mandis, hundreds of commodities and grades, and a public downloadable archive going back over two decades. Price and arrival data is captured at APMC market yards by the State Agricultural Marketing Board / APMC secretariat, validated by DMI Sub-Offices, and uploaded to the Agmarknet central content management system on a daily basis. From Agmarknet, prices flow out to the mKisan SMS service (daily price alerts to farmers on their selected crops and mandis), to the CACP for MSP recommendations, to e-NAM for its reference-price display and to State price-support decision systems.

Agmark, NIAM and ChAMAN — the standard-setting pillars

Agmark. ISAM funds DMI's administration of the Agmark Certificate of Authorisation, the notification of graded commodities and standards, and the CAL Nagpur + eleven RALs testing network — the statutory quality-grade backbone of Indian agri-marketing.
CCS NIAM Jaipur. An autonomous body under DA&FW co-funded from ISAM — the designated training centre for State Agricultural Marketing Board officers, APMC secretaries, FPO CEOs and DMI Sub-Office field officers on grading, warehousing, e-NAM operation and contract farming.
SAGF. Strengthening of Agmark Grading Facilities — modernisation grants to State Grading Labs so they can meet CAL/RAL analytical standards for pesticide residue, aflatoxin and micro-nutrient testing.
ChAMAN. Coordinated programme on Horticulture Assessment and Management using geo-iNformatics — DMI-MNCFC-MIDH joint work on satellite-based acreage and yield estimation for eight horticulture crops, ground-truthed against Agmarknet daily arrivals.

How ISAM interlocks with the wider agri-marketing stack

e-NAM. Operated by SFAC; its trading pillars are the Model APLM Act 2017 (drafted by DMI), Agmarknet reference prices (MRIN) and Agmark grade standards — all three ISAM outputs.
PMKSY (MoFPI). Cold-chain, mega-food-park and agro-processing-cluster grants layer on top of the AMI storage / grading base, especially where the project has both a marketing-infrastructure and food-processing component.
Operation Greens. MoFPI's tomato-onion-potato (extended to 22 F&V) value-chain scheme uses AMI-financed storage and grading capacity for the price-stabilisation and transport-subvention leg.
10,000 FPO scheme. FPOs registered under the Central Sector 10,000 FPO scheme are the largest new cohort of AMI applicants, using the 33.33% subsidy slab for grading, packing and rural-haat infrastructure at the FPO shed.
WDRA. AMI-funded scientific storage godowns are the natural pool of WDRA-registrable warehouses that can issue electronic Negotiable Warehouse Receipts (eNWRs) for pledge financing under the KCC and Kisan Rin Portal.
NAFED, FCI and PM-AASHA. Central-nominated procurement agencies use AMI / State-agency storage capacity for MSP procurement of pulses, oilseeds and cereals — Agmark grade standards are the reference quality frame.
PM-KISAN beneficiaries. Small and marginal farmers who receive PM-KISAN income support are the natural retail-side beneficiaries of AMI-funded rural haats and FPO-run grading corners.

What ISAM does NOT cover

APMC mandi construction and regulation. APMC market yards are State-regulated under State APMC / APLM laws — DMI drafts model laws but licensing, fees and operations are with State Agricultural Marketing Boards.
Working capital and input finance. Crop and allied-activity working capital is with the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) under the Modified Interest Subvention Scheme (MISS), not ISAM.
Food processing. Full-scope food processing is with MoFPI's PMKSY and PMFME — ISAM/AMI covers the marketing-infrastructure and primary-processing slice only.
Warehouse-receipt regulation. Regulation of Negotiable Warehouse Receipts and warehouse registration is with the WDRA under the Warehousing (Development & Regulation) Act, 2007.
Direct cash subsidy to farmers. AMI is a credit-linked back-ended capital subsidy on capital assets; farmer income support is with PM-KISAN, crop insurance with PMFBY, and pension with PM-KMY.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM)?: ISAM is a Central Sector scheme administered by the Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI), Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), Government of India, that consolidates back-end marketing infrastructure, market intelligence, grading and training work into a single administrative umbrella. It was formed in 2014 by merging seven pre-existing Central Sector sub-schemes into an integrated scheme with five principal sub-components — Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI), Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN) for Agmarknet, Agmark grading and standardisation under the 1937 Act, the CCS National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM) at Jaipur, and Strengthening of Agmark Grading Facilities (SAGF) plus the ChAMAN horticulture-crop assessment work. AMI is the single largest sub-scheme by outlay and is the credit-linked back-ended capital subsidy that farmers, FPOs, cooperatives, panchayats, State agencies and private entrepreneurs use to build scientific storage godowns, grading and packing lines, cold chains and rural haats.
What subsidy rate can I get under AMI, the main ISAM sub-scheme?: AMI subsidy is a back-ended capital subsidy linked to a bank / NABARD term loan. Standard rates are 25% of eligible project cost for general beneficiaries and 33.33% for Northeast States, hilly areas, SC / ST beneficiaries, women, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and registered cooperatives. Storage projects (godowns, silos, cold storages) in the Northeast attract the higher slab. Ceilings apply on a per-project basis and are project-category-specific (godowns, grading units, rural haats, mobile pre-cooling units, etc.). The subsidy is capitalised in a subsidy-reserve-fund account with the lending bank and released back-ended after satisfactory project completion and joint monitoring inspection — see the current DMI-issued AMI operational guidelines on dmi.gov.in for exact ceilings by project type and beneficiary category.
Who can apply for an AMI subsidy under ISAM?: Individual farmers and group of farmers, Agri-preneurs (including agri-graduates), Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) registered under Companies Act / Co-operative Societies Act, registered Cooperative Societies and their federations, Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), State agencies including State Agricultural Marketing Boards, State Warehousing Corporations, State Civil Supplies Corporations and APMCs, Central Warehousing Corporation, private entrepreneurs and companies, and NGOs — subject to a bankable Detailed Project Report (DPR), techno-commercial appraisal by NABARD / the lending bank and adherence to CIPHET / BIS design norms for the asset type. See our /dmi guide for the DMI-side administrative flow and the current sub-scheme guidelines on dmi.gov.in.
How is ISAM different from PMKSY, Operation Greens and e-NAM?: ISAM is DMI's Central Sector marketing scheme — it funds storage, grading, packing, rural-haat and cold-chain assets with a back-ended capital subsidy (AMI), runs the Agmarknet price portal (MRIN), administers the Agmark quality mark under the 1937 Act, funds NIAM Jaipur training, and runs ChAMAN horticulture assessment. PMKSY (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana) is a Ministry of Food Processing Industries scheme with its own cold-chain, mega-food-park, agro-processing-cluster and backward-forward-linkage sub-schemes — often layered on top of ISAM/AMI for larger cold-chain and processing projects. Operation Greens is an MoFPI scheme for TOP-crop (tomato, onion, potato) and later 22 additional fruits & vegetables value-chain infrastructure, price-stabilisation and transport / storage subvention. e-NAM is a Central Sector electronic trading platform operated by SFAC under DA&FW — it builds on the Model APLM Act 2017 (drafted by DMI), on Agmarknet prices and on Agmark grade standards. See /pmksy, /operation-greens and /e-nam for the full contrasts.
When was ISAM launched and by whom?: ISAM was launched during the XII Five Year Plan (2012-17) and became operational as a consolidated Central Sector scheme from 1 April 2014, when seven pre-existing DMI-administered central schemes on marketing infrastructure, market research & information, agri-marketing extension, quality control (Agmark) and grading-facility strengthening were merged into a single umbrella scheme by the then Department of Agriculture & Cooperation (now DA&FW), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. AMI itself is a continuation of the earlier Scheme for Development / Strengthening of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure, Grading & Standardisation, whose Rural Godown component dates back to 2001-02.
Where can I find the current ISAM guidelines, forms and subsidy schedule?: The DMI portal at dmi.gov.in publishes the current ISAM operational guidelines, the AMI subsidy schedule, the list of eligible project types and their unit costs, the sanctioning-authority chart for each beneficiary category, and the Sub-Office-wise field-office directory. NABARD's website (nabard.org) publishes the AMI channelling terms for the NABARD-routed component (state agencies, cooperatives, FPOs), including the subsidy claim workflow and Joint Inspection Committee protocols. State-level ISAM/AMI sanctions, especially for rural haats and cooperative infrastructure, are visible on the respective State Directorate of Agricultural Marketing portals. The Agmarknet portal itself is at agmarknet.gov.in and NIAM Jaipur's training calendar is at ccsniam.gov.in.

Official sources

Directorate of Marketing & Inspection — dmi.gov.in (ISAM operational guidelines, AMI subsidy schedule, eligible-asset list, Sub-Office directory).
Agmarknet — agmarknet.gov.in (MRIN-funded daily APMC arrivals and prices).
Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare — agricoop.nic.in (parent department; annual report; scheme-wise Central Sector budget provisions).
NABARD — nabard.org (AMI channelling terms for State agencies, cooperatives and FPOs; subsidy-claim workflow).
CCS National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM), Jaipur — ccsniam.gov.in (ISAM-funded training partner for grading, warehousing and e-NAM operation).
Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937 — bare Act on the India Code portal at indiacode.nic.in (statutory basis for the Agmark sub-scheme).
Press Information Bureau — pib.gov.in (ISAM consolidation of 2014, AMI subsidy notifications, GrAM / rural-haats Budget 2018-19 announcement).

The 2014 consolidation of seven Central Sector schemes into ISAM, the five constituent sub-schemes (AMI, MRIN / Agmarknet, Agmark, CCS NIAM and SAGF + ChAMAN), the 25% general / 33.33% special-category AMI subsidy structure, the NABARD / scheduled-commercial-bank channelling model and the Joint Inspection Committee subsidy-release protocol are drawn from the DMI portal at dmi.gov.in, the DA&FW annual report at agricoop.nic.in, NABARD circulars on AMI channelling and PIB releases on ISAM sanctions. Subsidy ceilings, eligible-asset lists and unit-cost norms evolve — beneficiaries, FPOs, State officials and researchers should verify the current position on dmi.gov.in, agmarknet.gov.in and with the concerned NABARD Regional Office or State Directorate of Agricultural Marketing before quoting them.