Now, insurance for vegetable, fruit farmers

growing vegetables and fruits in Rajasthan are to get insurance for their crops from now. Agriculture minister Prabhu Lal Saini on Monday said that Prime Minister’s Modified Weather Based Crop Insurance has been implemented in the state and tenders will be issued this week.

He said so far, farmers in the state were getting insured for the crops under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). In this scheme, if crops suffer damage due to weather calamities then the damage is assessed by the revenue department based crop cutting experiment and regular yield data.

This PM Modified Weather Based Crop Insurance is applicable on crops which do not have regular yield data, that is fruits and vegetables. The parameter of this insurance is decided on the conditions of adverse weather such as dry spell, excessive rains, excessive cold etc. The payout is decided on the data of temperature, rainfall and humidity along withadverseweatherconditions.

Saini said that the vegetables and fruits are commercial crops, therefore, farmers growing fruits and vegetable will have to bear insurance premium of 5%, while the remaining premium of 95% will be equally shared by centre and state governments.

JAIPUR:Farmers

In PMFBY, farmers of kharif crops give 2% premium and of rabi crops give 1.5% insurance premium and remaining is borne 50% each by the state and centre governments.

He said that within this week, tenders will be issued and the insurance company bidding lowest premium will be awarded the tender.

According to horticulture department data, in 2016-17, vegetables were grown on 1,70,132 hectares and production was 46,84,063 metric tonne, while fruits were grown on an area of 53,092 hectares and production was 9,61,597 metric tonne.