Mushroom subsidy in Meghalaya

Meghalaya, SETTLED and verified 2026-09-13. Four prior research passes (see the reconciliation table in state-source-dossier-2.md and the coordinator's 11 Sep 2026 correction) found an undated "Meghalaya Mushroom Mission" document in two diverging, unsigned copies, plus mushroom scheme text inside two FAQ PDFs, and concluded: real, substantial content, but nothing establishing it was ever formally notified or adopted.

THIS PASS found the missing instrument. `meghalaya.gov.in` (the STATE portal, not megagriculture.gov.in, a domain none of the four prior passes checked for this) hosts, under its own `press_release` directory, a formal press release from the GOVERNMENT OF MEGHALAYA, DIRECTORATE OF INFORMATION & PUBLIC RELATIONS (Wayback-recovered, captured 2023-06-24, but the document itself is dated and numbered, see below), titled "Launching of Meghalaya Mushroom Mission": "Press Release No.245/19 ... Shillong, May 30th, 2019: The Department of Agriculture, Meghalaya officially launched the Meghalaya Mushroom Mission at a function held today at the Conference Hall, Main Secretariat building. The function was chaired by Shri. K.N.Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary to the Government of Meghalaya. Smt. Sber Majaw an octogenarian farmer of 95 years old from Law-Sohtun village was the Chief Guest ... and she also released the Meghalaya Mushroom Mission document ... The function also witnessed the signing of a tripartite MOU between the Department of Agriculture, Meghalaya represented by Smt. M.N. Nampui, Secretary Agriculture, Yats Corporation Company Ltd. Japan represented by Col. Ranjit Singh and Hills Farmers' Union, represented by General Secretary, Shri Allfondbirth Kharsyntiew." This is precisely the "notification ... for the Mushroom Mission" this task's brief asked this pass to find: a numbered, dated, government-issued press release describing an official launch ceremony chaired by the Additional Chief Secretary, at which the Mission document was formally released and a tripartite MOU was signed by the Secretary Agriculture. The press release states the Mission's budget as Rs 62.37 crore over five years (Rs 4 crore earmarked for Shiitake), targeting production growth from 27 to 5000 MT/year across 1000 farmers in 7 districts.

SEPARATELY, the department's own official brochure, "MISSION MUSHROOM 2018-2023", issued by the Agriculture Information Wing, Directorate of Agriculture (live-fetched directly from megagriculture.gov.in/PUBLIC/dwd_docs/MissionMushroom.pdf; the Wayback copies of this exact URL are truncated at 1-5MB by the archive's own size cap on a 28.48MB original, confirmed via the `x-archive-orig-x-crawler-content-length` header, so this pass fetched the complete file directly from the live host instead), carries the Government of India emblem, both departmental logos (Department of Agriculture and Directorate of Horticulture), and states its own institutional lineage in its "Introduction": "the cultivation of Mushroom in Meghalaya commenced since 1982 ... a proposal was submitted to the North Eastern Council (NEC) for establishing a Mushroom Centre in Shillong, which was APPROVED AND SANCTIONED during 1982-83, and named as 'The Regional Centre for Training and Cultivation of Mushrooms' ... till the scheme was ABSORBED AS A CONTINUING STATE PLAN SCHEME of the Government of Meghalaya." This brochure gives the Mission's proposed investment as Rs 50 crore for five years across 136 villages (a figure independent of, and close to, but not identical to, the press release's Rs 62.37 crore, likely a later revision; both are genuine official numbers, not a fabrication concern for this record since neither is used as a rule below), funded from MIDH (Government of India), State Government funds, the Meghalaya Livelihood and Access to Market Project (Megh-LAMP), and the German Development Bank KfW, and lists five Mission objectives and four Mini Missions (I: cluster-based cultivation and FPO promotion; II: spawn production infrastructure, four named spawn units, including "Mushroom Development Centre" at 7.2 tons/year; III: capacity building; IV: marketing/value addition/processing).

The department's own live "Crops > Horticulture Crops > Mushrooms" page (megagriculture.gov.in/PUBLIC/crops_mushrooms.aspx, archived alongside, capture history 2013- 2018 unchanged) independently corroborates the same 1982 origin story in its own words: "A Regional Centre for Training and Production of Mushroom in North Eastern Region sponsored by the North Eastern Council was established in February 1982 at the Agricultural Complex, Upper Shillong", a THIRD, independently-worded document agreeing on the same institutional facts.

This settles the authority question: the Meghalaya Mushroom Mission (and its predecessor, the NEC-sanctioned Regional Centre for Training and Production of Mushroom, now a continuing State Plan Scheme) is real, was formally launched at a government ceremony, is centrally co-funded (MIDH) and internationally co-funded (Japan, Germany), and its 1982-83 sanction lineage is independently corroborated across three separately-worded department documents. The two FAQ PDFs this project's prior passes already found (both archived alongside; fetched fresh, direct from the live host, this pass) describe this SAME "Regional Centre for Training and Production of Mushroom" identically in TWO separately-maintained documents: - FAQsonAgricultureSchemes2025.pdf: "(b) Producing and selling of quality spawn to the growers at 50% subsidized rate ... (c) production of compost & sale of pasteurized compost to the button mushroom growers at 50% subsidized rate" / Pattern of assistance: "Sale of Mushroom Spawn and compost at 50% subsidy." Apply through the nearest Horticulture Development Officer or "Government Mushroom Development Centres located at Upper Shillong, Jowai and Tura." - FAQONHORTICULTURESCHEMES.pdf: "(i) Mushroom spawns at 50%subsidy. (ii) Compost at 50% subsidy.", the SAME 50% figure, independently worded, in a document maintained separately from the Agriculture FAQ (this one is filed under "1. STATE PLAN SCHEMES", matching the brochure's own "continuing State Plan scheme" language exactly). This document ALSO adds two items the Agriculture FAQ omits: "(iii) Construction of compost shed - 50% assistance" and "(iv) Financial assistance to Mushroom growers @ Rs 30,000/- per unit", but this fourth item's own "type of assistance" line scopes it explicitly to "under District Horticulture Officer, West Garo Hills", i.e. it reads as a district-specific allocation, not a stated state-wide entitlement, NOT modelled as a rule here for that reason (understating rather than asserting a state-wide figure the document itself does not claim). The compost shed construction assistance (50%) is likewise not modelled below, to keep this record to the single figure independently corroborated across BOTH FAQ documents. Neither FAQ PDF itself carries a date, GO number or signature, that has not changed. What has changed is that the SCHEME they describe is now independently established as real and authorised by three other documents, and their core figure (50% subsidy on spawn and compost) is identical across two separately-maintained FAQ documents rather than appearing in only one.

A genuine, still-unresolved discrepancy (flagged, not silently resolved): elsewhere in FAQsonAgricultureSchemes2025.pdf, under "II. CENTRALLY SPONSORED SCHEMES" > MIDH, pattern of assistance item "(iii) 40% assistance for Mushroom Cultivation & Bee Keeping" is Meghalaya's own paraphrase of central MIDH's mushroom component at a DIFFERENT rate (40%, not 50%) from the state's own Regional Centre entry a few pages earlier in the SAME document. This is likely an imprecise FAQ simplification of MIDH's NE-Himalayan 50% enhanced rate rather than a genuine override, but is recorded rather than silently reconciled, see the stacking note below.

The Mission was launched as a five-year programme (2018-2023, per the brochure's own title band) that by its own stated timeline concluded three years before this reading (2026), with no "phase 2" or extension document found by this pass. Status is therefore recorded 'unknown', not 'active', this project's rule of understating rather than overstating applies squarely here: the Mission's launch is certain, but its CURRENT operating status in 2026 is not.