Thirteen Years of FMTTI Testing Fees: The 15% Rule, and the Year It Changed

FMTTI testing charges are published one financial year at a time, as a single-page schedule. We'd never seen them laid out side by side, so we collected every schedule the Southern Region institute has published — 2013-14 through 2025-26 — and lined them up.

What we found was more orderly than we expected.

The rule was printed on the schedule itself

The 2014-15 schedule carries a note that explains the whole dataset:

All the testing charges in respect of items at No. 1 to 11 in the above table will be increased by 15% at the end of each financial year.

The 2015-16 schedule repeats it. And the numbers follow it — not approximately, but to the rupee, for eleven consecutive revisions. We checked every category, every year.

Financial year	Components / hand tools	Tractor-drawn implements	Self-propelled paddy transplanter	Change
2013-14	₹6,072	₹41,268	₹59,066	—
2014-15	₹6,983	₹47,458	₹67,926	+15%
2015-16	₹8,031	₹54,577	₹78,115	+15%
2016-17	₹9,236	₹62,764	₹89,833	+15%
2017-18	₹10,621	₹72,179	₹1,03,308	+15%
2018-19	₹12,214	₹83,006	₹1,18,804	+15%
2019-20	₹14,046	₹95,457	₹1,36,625	+15%
2020-21	—	—	—	schedule not online
2021-22	₹18,577	₹1,26,241	₹1,80,685	+32.25% over two years
2022-23	₹21,364	₹1,45,177	₹2,07,788	+15%
2023-24	₹24,569	₹1,66,954	₹2,38,956	+15%
2024-25	₹28,254	₹1,91,997	₹2,74,799	+15%
2025-26	₹30,514	₹2,07,357	₹2,96,783	+8%

The 2020-21 row is blank because that year's schedule isn't currently reachable online. It turns out not to matter: the two-year step from 2019-20 to 2021-22 is exactly 32.25%, which is 15% compounded twice. The missing year sat squarely on the rule like every other.

Then 2025-26 changed it, in your favour

The current schedule was issued under the Ministry's Office Memorandum F.No. 13-14/2020-M&T(I&P)(C-82979), dated 31 January 2025, effective 01.04.2025. It raised charges by 8% rather than 15%, and moved revision to every two years instead of annually — the next due w.e.f. 01-04-2027, with a review after three years depending on how the new testing regime progresses.

For anyone costing a test, that's real money:

Category	Under the previous 15% rule	Actual 2025-26	Difference
Components / hand tools	₹32,492	₹30,514	−₹1,978
Power-operated thresher	₹1,29,866	₹1,21,961	−₹7,905
Tractor-drawn implements	₹2,20,797	₹2,07,357	−₹13,440
Seed-cum-fertilizer drill etc.	₹2,31,600	₹2,17,502	−₹14,098
Power-operated multi-crop thresher	₹2,38,110	₹2,23,616	−₹14,494
Self-propelled paddy transplanter	₹3,16,019	₹2,96,783	−₹19,236

The cadence change matters more than the one-off saving. Under the old rule, the same machine cost 15% more if you tested it a year later, so timing an application across a financial-year boundary was worth planning around. Under the new rule there's no revision at all until 01-04-2027 — which makes a two-year product roadmap far easier to cost than it has been in a decade.

Three other things we noticed

Reading thirteen schedules in sequence surfaces changes that have nothing to do with the headline number.

The tax treatment changed twice. The 2013-14 and 2014-15 schedules print Service Tax at 12.36% in a column beside the fee. By 2015-16 it's 14%. From 2018-19 onward it's GST at 18%, FMTTI testing having been classified as "Technical Testing and Analysis Service" under Chapter No. 998346 by a 2017 letter from the Central Tax office at Anantapur. The headline fee has always been quoted exclusive of tax — so a ₹2,07,357 test costs ₹2,44,681 all in.

Payment moved online. Through 2018-19 the schedules ask for a demand draft in favour of the Director, payable at the State Bank of India, Anantapur, Branch Code 0806. By 2021-22 that's replaced by online payment through the Government of India's NTRP portal at bharatkosh.gov.in. If you're working from an older schedule you'll be reading superseded payment instructions, so it's worth checking you have the current year's.

The category list moved around. The 2013-14 schedule lists 11 categories. By 2021-22 it's 8 — animal-drawn equipment, manually operated equipment and the animal-drawn multi tool bar aren't listed. All three return in 2025-26, on a schedule now running to 15 lines that also adds pump sets and plant protection equipment.

That last point is worth flagging if you make animal-drawn or manually operated equipment: for a few years the published schedule had no line for your category, so a quote from that period came from somewhere other than the schedule. Today's schedule covers you again, and it's the one to work from.

A number we liked

The 2013-14 schedule carries a footnote recording that the Government had approved 28 State Agricultural Universities and institutes as testing centres. The current count is 38 identified testing centres alongside the four FMTTIs — 42 approved testing bodies in total.

So over the same period that charges rose five-fold, the approved testing network grew by more than a third. We think both belong in the same sentence.

How we'd use this

Two practical points. Until 01-04-2027 the current schedule is the schedule, so there's no annual creep to plan around — a genuinely good window for costing a multi-year testing programme. And always add the 18% on top, because the published figure never includes it.

The part that usually needs working through is which line of the schedule a particular machine actually falls under, and whether a separate dedicated circular governs it — as one does for power tillers, with its own itemised rate card. That's where we spend most of our time on a fee question, and it's the ground we cover under test process guidance before a fee that's now payable in full at the moment you apply.