Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari has stressed the need to create awareness regarding Prime Minister's Crop Insurance Scheme amongst the farming community and provide the allied benefits for improving the condition of agriculture and farmers.<br/><br/>He was speaking at the Public Awareness Meet held in respect of the insurance scheme at the Agricultural Science Centre of Central Institute of Cotton Research in Nagpur on Saturday.<br/><br/>The farmers have been suffering a lot due to vagaries of the nature during the last several years and the new crop insurance scheme would go a long way in mitigation of their problems, he said.<br/><br/>Mr. Gadkari stated that the Union Government has provided nine lakh crore rupees for disbursement of crop loans through the nationalized banks at lower interest rate and the farmers making repayment on time would be getting them at zero per cent rate of interest.<br/><br/>The Minister mentioned that the crop insurance cover, which was hitherto limited to 20 per cent, has now been increased to 50 to 60 per cent with introduction of the new scheme and urged the farmers to make optimum utilization of the ambitious scheme.<br/><br/>Secondly, he also called upon the farmers to experiment and invent new crop patterns as per the market demands and strive for value addition of the farm produce which would in turn help empowerment of the farming community.<br/><br/>Member of Parliament from Ramtek Krupal Tumane and former Chairman of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board Dr. Charudatt Mayee and Director CICR Dr. K. Kranti also addressed the gathering which was organized as a part of the 'Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday Tak' Campaign launched recently by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.