Gandhinagar: Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel in his weekly briefing post State cabinet meeting today announced State government’s decision to offer Rs. 700 crore package to excess rain-hit farmers of Gujarat. The package according to Dy CM will benefit more than 4 lakh farmers. In cases of more than 33% damage to crops the government will offer assistance of Rs. 13,500 per hectare for irrigated crops and Rs. 6,800 per hectare for non-irrigated crops. The farmers who suffered lesser than 33% damage will also get assistance. Patel also announced purchase of groundnut on minimum support price(MSP) from November 18.

Patel said the survey to assess damage caused to farmers due to heavy rain in July-August-September, October-end and November first week is near completion.

Patel said the farmers will get additional benefits through PM Fasal Bima Yojana. He said groundnut purchase at minimum support price (MSP) will resume from November 18.

Patel said the State witnessed sowing of cotton, groundnut, paddy, castor, til, kathol etc crops in Kharif covering 86.77 lakh hectare area. He said estimated production of cotton would be over 90 lakh bales, groundnut 25 lakh mt(metric tonne), paddy 20 lakh mt and castor 14 lakh mt.