 "Centre lowers crop damage estimate")
It has also decided to depute at least two central ministers to each of the 14 affected states, who will visit villages and monitor distribution, of relief and compensation and push the states to complete their damage assessments on time.
Officials said the Centre is also working to include rain into the category of national calamities, apart from hailstorm and frost, which would help in enhancing the compensation.
According to the government's revised estimates, standing rabi crops on 10.67 million hectares have been damaged in the recent rains and hails, 17.26 per cent of the total rabi sown area of cereals, not 18.1 million hectares as in earlier estimates.
This also includes damage done to horticultural crops like onion, mango, grapes and banana, also the case during the earlier preliminary assessment done by the agriculture ministry. The largest damage as in the earlier assessment is still in the case of wheat, but the extent is much lower than the preliminary report.
Wheat in 2014-15 has been sown in around 30.63 million hectares. This means the crop in around 21 per cent of the total sown area has been damaged, lower than the preliminary estimate of damage to almost 40 per cent of the sown area.
In the case of mustard, the damage estimate has been lowered from 2.57 million hectares to 1.77 million hectares. "We have urged the state governments to complete their assessment and survey of damages done to standing crop quickly, and from the Centre we are ready to share whatever burden the states want us to share," Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjeev Balyan said.