Soil Health Card — delays, tracking and the RTI route

The card is one of Indian agriculture's most practical documents: it tells a farmer what the field actually holds, what the standing crop will draw, and what to add — and, just as often, what to stop adding. Fertilizer bought by habit instead of by soil test is the most expensive input waste on small farms. But the scheme's delivery side is a chain — sample collection, testing at the soil testing lab, data entry, card generation, distribution — and the card stalls at whichever link the district machinery forgets.

The recommendations printed on the card are crop-wise: what to apply, for which crop, on that field's numbers. A card two years late is a season of wrong inputs.

• On the portal, sample and card status can be looked up for your village and survey number; note the sample number it returns — that number is the whole RTI.
• The village agriculture assistant or Krishi Salahakar collected the sample on a dated visit; the district soil testing lab tested it. Both records are with the district agriculture office, a public authority.

1. The status of the soil sample no. _____ collected from my holding
   at village _____, survey no. _____, on _____ (date).
2. The date the sample reached the soil testing laboratory, the
   date of testing, and the date results were entered in the portal.
3. A copy of the soil analysis report for this sample.
4. The date the Soil Health Card was generated, and the mode and
   date of its delivery to me.
5. If not delivered, the name and designation of the officer
   responsible for distribution in my block.
6. The number of samples collected in my village in the current
   cycle, and the number of cards generated and distributed.

Real example. A card for Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak's smallholding arrived showing a pH written as 9.2 for a plot the family had limed for acidity for a decade. The RTI's question 2 produced the lab's entry — the digit transposed at data entry from a 6.2 report. The corrected card arrived with the fertilizer schedule re-issued, and the lime purchase cancelled.

Where cards are delayed wholesale, ask question 6 — collection versus generation versus distribution exposes whether the failure is sampling, labs or delivery, and block-level numbers move district offices more than one farmer's complaint.

Village-level staff of the agriculture department on a scheduled grid visit; the sample number they issue is the key to every record.

The cycle is every three years, with fresh sampling and testing each cycle.

The card covers the crops scheduled for your district; ask the agriculture office for the recommendation set of the nearest equivalent crop, or a fresh test if the rotation changed.

It is accepted as the soil-status record by several state schemes; for the specific list, ask the district office in writing and keep the reply.

• PM-KISAN — instalment delays
• PM Fasal Bima — claim delays
• All farmer-scheme guides
• The RTI Playbook book

• Soil Health Card portal, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
• PIB factsheet — Soil Health Card: the 12 parameters and the cycle

Last reviewed: 26 August 2026. Launch year, the 12 parameters and the 3-year cycle verified this run against the Ministry factsheet and portal. The old page claimed a yield gain percentage that no official source supports; it has been removed.