Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
and then discover a price for his/her commodity.
Risk mitigation: Crop insurance has had limited success in the past due to inadequate
Government subsidy to meet the cost of insurance, delayed and inadequate compensation,
poor awareness of and low usage by farmers. Crop insurance for food crops requires
scientists to develop scientific protocols for loss assessment on the basis of weather data.
In earlier schemes, the premium for commercial and horticulture crops could be as high
as 25 percent depending on the risk factor involved. Under Prime Minister’s Fasal Bima
Yojana, the premium to be paid by farmers will be 5 per cent. The balance premium will
be paid by the government to provide full insured amount to the farmers against crop loss
on account of natural calamities.
Per capita consumption of fruits: The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for
moderately active male individuals arrived at by the Indian Council of Medical Research
(ICMR) includes 100 grams of fruit per capita daily. The intake of fruits of even the urban
top 5 percent (per capita expenditure per month) is modest. Their per capita consumption
is 15 bananas a month, or one in two days. They have less than half a kilogram of
mangoes a month and 200gm of watermelon. There is a large disparity in expenditure
on fruits between the richest urban and poorest rural households. Even in the `middle’
expenditure class, urban households spend more than twice as much on fruit compared
to rural households. In a survey in five Indian cities, the average intake of fruit and
vegetables was 3.5 servings or 280 grams per day. It comprised of 1.5 servings of fruit and
two servings of vegetables. This is much lower than the recommendation of five servings
a day by the World Health Organisation. For the age group 18-25 years, it is 2.97 servings
per day.
1. HORTICULTURE SECTOR- GROWTH TRENDS
Production of fruits and vegetables overtook India’s foodgrain production by
31 million tonnes in 2014-15 (284 million tonnes against 253 million tonnes).
This was the third straight year when horticulture output outstripped that of
foodgrains. As Figure 1 shows, foodgrain production dropped in drought years
(2002, 2004, 2009, 2014), while horticulture production was either unaffected or
stayed on its upward growth trajectory (Bera, 2016).
Annexures
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