Uttarakhand Moves to Draft Rudraksh Farming Policy to Curb Hill Migration

The Uttarakhand government has set in motion a plan to build a formal cultivation policy around Rudraksh, the seed prized for prayer beads and venerated by Hindus and Buddhists, as a way to create fresh income in its depopulating hill districts.

A notification issued on August 31, signed by Under Secretary Sandeep Sharma of the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare department and addressed to the Director of Horticulture and Food Processing, asked officials to examine a proposal covering cultivation methods, farm management, post-harvest processing, marketing and soil suitability, and to submit a clear proposal at the earliest.

The move follows a request from Tehri MLA Kishore Upadhyay to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, and a four-member delegation's visit to Nepal in March to study how Rudraksh is grown there. The team included Upadhyay, Rudraksh expert Prince Agrawal and senior agricultural scientist Ramesh Singh Pal. Its conclusions were placed before the Chief Minister in July in a 197-page technical report and a presentation titled 'Strategic Introduction of Rudraksha Cultivation in Uttarakhand'.

The migration problem

Hill districts of the state have for decades been losing residents to Dehradun, Delhi and other cities. The state's own migration commission has linked the outflow partly to unviable farm incomes, crop damage by wildlife and fragmented landholdings.

Pal said the villages have turned into ghost settlements because there is simply nothing left there, with land lying empty. The expert team's presentation identifies the wildlife menace, fragmented low-yield holdings and a lack of cash-generating assets as the main drivers of migration, and presents Rudraksh as a crop that answers each concern: wildlife does not eat it, it needs little upkeep once established, and it has a large, largely unmet market at home and abroad.

The China market

Much of the case rests on demand from China, identified as the world's largest importer of Rudraksh. Customs data cited in the report puts China at 63.7% of total recorded Rudraksh exports, followed by the United States at 19.3%.

A table in the presentation estimates China's 2025 Rudraksha imports, sourced mainly from Nepal's collector and raw-bead trade, at $100,800,000 — roughly five times India's import bill of $20,140,000, more than 95% of which comes from Indonesia and Nepal.

Pal recalled the delegation seeing a 29-mukhi Rudraksh in Nepal, a rare bead with 29 lobes or ridges, saying a single piece is worth about Rs 1.5 crore and that China imports more of this than India does. Large-scale commercial production is currently dominated by Nepal and Indonesia, and the presentation argues that Uttarakhand, with soil and climate similar to Nepal's growing regions, has so far captured no share of that trade.

Pal said China buys large quantities because the bead has both religious and medicinal uses there, figuring in rituals and traditions and worn as a sacred necklace, with monasteries where it is believed in and used. It also has value in Ayurveda, he said, with some people believing that water in which Rudraksh has been soaked helps with skin ailments and other health problems. Besides China, the bead is in demand in Singapore and Japan, where followers believe it brings prosperity and well-being.

Lessons from Nepal

The team visited Bhetedhar and Dingla in Nepal's Bhojpur district from March 23 to 29 and collected soil samples for comparison with sites in Tehri Garhwal, Rishikesh, Haridwar's Chilla forest range, and the Mansa Devi and Manokamna temple areas.

Nepal's Rudraksh belt lies between 600 and 2,000 metres in altitude, with average temperatures of 25-30°C and annual rainfall of 1,500-2,500mm. Uttarakhand's proposed growing zone — 500 to 1,800 metres, 22-35°C and 1,000-2,200mm of rain — falls within a comparable range. The comparative soil analysis indicates that Uttarakhand soils are largely suitable and comparable to Nepalese growing regions.

On those findings, Pauri, Tehri, Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Almora and Bageshwar are listed as high-potential districts for plantation, while Nainital, Champawat, Pithoragarh and the hill areas of Dehradun are rated moderate potential.

Challenges ahead

Pal flagged problems that have dogged earlier, less organised attempts at cultivation. A similar-looking but different species, Bhadraksh, is often mistaken for or substituted for genuine Rudraksh. He said the two are entirely different species — same genus — and that Bhadraksh grows in Rudraksh's place in many areas; a sapling looks exactly like a Rudraksh plant early on, and the difference becomes clear only after fruiting begins, two to four years in.

The report also acknowledges that Rudraksh trees do not begin fruiting for six to eight years and take about a decade to reach peak production. It estimates that a hill migrant working in a city typically saves Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 a month. By comparison, a single mature tree can yield 1,000 to 2,000 beads a year, which at a conservative wholesale price of Rs 10-20 per bead for the common five-faced variety would generate Rs 10,000 to Rs 40,000 annually per tree. A family managing 20 mature trees could earn Rs 2 lakh to Rs 8 lakh a year.

To bridge the years before fruiting, the plan proposes using the Centre's rural employment guarantee scheme to fund labour for digging pits, planting and fencing for the first three years, with the Horticulture Department supplying saplings free or at subsidised rates. A later phase calls for training women's self-help groups in cleaning, grading and oiling harvested beads, and training young people in stringing prayer beads, silver-capping and packaging — work that pays significantly more than selling raw beads.

The report sets a target of 10,000 hectares under Rudraksh cultivation by 2047, with 10 million trees planted, 50,000 to 70,000 farmers involved and up to 150,000 rural jobs created.