Soil health card

Story hook

In a soil-testing lab in Suratgarh, Sri Ganganagar (Rajasthan), December 2014, scientists from ICAR's Indian Institute of Soil Science (IISS, Bhopal) finish a multi-state pilot. Their finding: soil organic carbon (SOC) in Punjab's central tract has fallen from 0.6% (1970s) to 0.2-0.3% (2014), well below the 0.5% biological-health threshold. In some Haryana fields, NPK ratios have skewed to 24:8:1 against the recommended 4:2:1 — three decades of urea overdose. The state of the soil is the inverse of the state of the granary.

On 19 February 2015, the PM launches the Soil Health Card (SHC) Scheme at Suratgarh — a target of 14 crore cards by 2022. Cycle I delivered 10.74 crore cards (FY15-17); Cycle II delivered 11.7 crore (FY18-19). Then in 2022-23 (SHC 2.0) the scheme moved to GIS-tagged grid-based sampling. By 2024, 23 crore-plus cards have been issued and the ICAR-NBSSLUP soil map identifies 120 lakh hectares of degraded land.

Below the visible crops sits a slower, invisible crisis — 30% of India's land area is degraded (ISRO Atlas 2018-19) and 42% suffers some form of erosion. The Soil Health Card was UPA-era pilot turned NDA-era flagship. Whether it changes farmer behaviour is the real question.

Why this matters for UPSC

GS-III tests soil-erosion typologies (sheet, rill, gully, ravine, riverine), soil-health diagnostics (NPK, micronutrients, organic carbon), the Soil Health Card Scheme, and soil-conservation schemes (Watershed PMKSY, INM, PKVY, NMSA). Prelims has tested SHC parameters (2019), Black Soil distribution (2020), and laterite soil (2016). Mains weighs SHC's behavioural impact and sustainable land management.