All 649 customs ports digitally integrated via ICEGATE–PQMS linkage to speed up agri imports

In a sweeping push to streamline agricultural governance and reduce compliance burdens across the value chain, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India, has unveiled a series of major reforms aimed at improving ease of doing business, digitising regulatory workflows, and enhancing service delivery for farmers, traders, and agri-input stakeholders.

Union Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the reform agenda under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Reform Express” is focused on making agricultural systems “simpler, faster, more transparent and technology-driven,” while strengthening efficiency across regulatory and trade mechanisms.

At a high-level review meeting, the Ministry outlined multiple structural changes already implemented or underway. These include significant simplification of the licensing process for the sale and storage of household pesticides, where application forms have been reduced from three pages to a single page. The move is expected to benefit more than 4 million small retailers and shopkeepers dealing in everyday household insecticide products.

In a parallel regulatory overhaul, the government has streamlined the registration process for new fertilisers under the Fertilizer Control Order (FCO), 1985. The earlier dual-approval mechanism involving both the Technical Committee and the Central Fertilizer Committee has been eliminated, leaving a single-window clearance system under the Central Fertilizer Committee. Officials noted that 19 applicants and manufacturers have already benefited from the revised framework.

On the trade facilitation front, the government has achieved full digital integration across all 649 customs ports in India, linking the Plant Quarantine Management System (PQMS) with the ICEGATE platform of Indian Customs. This integration enables agricultural commodity importers to submit a single application, with Import Release Orders generated directly through their login, significantly reducing procedural delays.

The Ministry also announced the removal of legacy bottlenecks in the seeds and planting material trade. The EXIM Committee has been abolished and the requirement for prior recommendation has been scrapped, substantially easing cross-border movement of agri-inputs.

A key highlight of the reform push is the rollout of the “Bharat-VISTAAR – AI in Agriculture” platform, designed as a unified digital interface for farmers. Since its phased launch in February 2026, the platform has already processed over 4.4 million queries, consolidating services that previously required navigation across more than 15 separate government systems.

Officials further confirmed that the government is evaluating a proposal to exempt certain inorganic fertilisers meeting established safety and quality standards from mandatory field trials under the FCO framework. If implemented, the change is expected to accelerate the introduction of new fertiliser technologies, subject to consultations with ICAR, state governments, industry stakeholders, and technical review bodies.

Concluding the review, the Agriculture Minister directed officials to intensify reform execution, reinforcing the government’s stated objective of enhancing transparency, improving regulatory speed, and reducing friction for all stakeholders across India’s agricultural ecosystem.