40% of what, exactly

The claim that circulates in this market is simple: you get 40% of your project cost. Neither of the two central schemes that fund a mushroom farm works that way, and they do not fail to work that way in the same manner. MIDH applies its rate to a fixed cost norm. NHB applies its rate to your capacity. What you actually spend does not set either figure.

MIDH: a percentage of a norm that does not move

Take a real-sized project: growing rooms costing ₹80,00,000 to build. MIDH does not see ₹80,00,000. It sees the ₹30,00,000 norm for a production unit, and pays 40% of that.

₹12,00,000 is 40% of ₹30,00,000. It is only 15% of the ₹80,00,000 this farm actually spent. In an NE and Himalayan state, a scheduled area or a vibrant village, the rate rises to 50% of the same norm, ₹15,00,000, which is still under 19% of actual spend at this project size. The norm, not the rate, is what a first-time applicant is usually not told about. The same shape holds for MIDH’s other mushroom components: a compost unit is priced against its own ₹30 lakh norm, a spawn making unit against a ₹20 lakh norm, at the same 40%/50% rate.

NHB: a percentage of your capacity, not your invoice

NHB Scheme No. 1 gives an integrated mushroom unit a clause of its own, and prices it per tonne of installed capacity. The eligible project cost is your capacity multiplied by a per-tonne norm, ₹85,000 with canning or ₹75,000 without, and the rate is applied to that. NHB says so in terms:

Read that sentence twice before you build. It means a farm that costs three crore and runs at 100 tonnes a year is assessed on 100 tonnes, exactly like one that cost half as much at the same capacity. Spending more does not buy more subsidy from NHB. It also means the reverse: an expensive build is not penalised, because the basis never looks at the invoice at all.

No rupee ceiling applies to this item. That is a finding, not an omission: the same table states a ceiling in terms wherever one exists, and this row carries none. What limits it is the capacity band, and the floor at the bottom of that band is the part most likely to catch someone out. A farm below 50 tonnes a year draws nothing at all from NHB under this item, however much it cost to build, and the clause says “above 50 MT”, so 50 exactly does not clear it.

Which door is worth more, and when

You cannot use both on one project. NHB’s own guideline says the two are mutually exclusive and that assistance may be claimed under only one scheme for a single project, so this is a choice, not a stack.

Below NHB’s floor there is no choice to make: MIDH is the only door, and it is a real one. Above the floor, NHB overtakes MIDH quickly, because MIDH’s figure is frozen at 40% of a norm while NHB’s keeps rising with capacity up to 300 tonnes. At 100 tonnes a year NHB is already paying more than twice what MIDH pays on the growing rooms. There is a second reason to weigh MIDH anyway: it carries credit-linkage escapes that NHB does not, so a self-funded grower who cannot take a term loan may find MIDH is the only door open at any size.