Krishak Prashikshan tatha Bhraman Karyakram (Farmer Training and Exposure Visit Programme)

What is Krishak Prashikshan tatha Bhraman Karyakram?

Krishak Prashikshan tatha Bhraman Karyakram is the farmer training and exposure visit programme run by the Department of Horticulture and Food Processing, Government of Madhya Pradesh. The department describes the objective plainly: to acquaint the farmers of a district with new horticulture technologies by taking them to institutions, farmers' demonstration fields and research centres at district, divisional, state and national level, and so raise their technical knowledge. The programme has been continuously operated since 2007-08.

The idea behind the programme is that a horticulture technique is easier to adopt after a farmer has seen it working on somebody else's field than after reading about it. A grape grower from Ratlam who has walked through a trellised vineyard in Nashik, or a vegetable farmer from Chhindwara who has stood inside a working poly house at a state agricultural university, comes back with a much clearer picture of cost, labour and returns than any leaflet can give.

Madhya Pradesh formed the present Department of Horticulture and Food Processing by merging the Directorate of Horticulture and Farm Forestry with the Madhya Pradesh Agro Industries Development Corporation, and the training programme sits in the department's Transfer of Technology and Human Resource Development portfolio. Funding is drawn from the centrally sponsored Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) and from the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), alongside the state's own budget line. The department publishes district-wise beneficiary lists of RKVY training batches; Anuppur, Bhopal, Mandsaur, Shivpuri, Narmadapuram and Sagar among them: on the scheme page at mphorticulture.gov.in.

Who is eligible for the farmer training and exposure visit programme?

You can be selected if:

• You are a farmer resident in Madhya Pradesh cultivating land recorded in your own name or in your family's name.
• You grow, or are preparing to grow, a horticulture crop: fruit, vegetables, spices, flowers, aromatic or medicinal plants.
• You are registered on the MPFSTS portal with your Aadhaar and Samagra ID.
• Your district has an unexhausted physical and financial target for the training component in the current financial year.

Marginal and small farmers of every category are explicitly covered, and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe farmers are given batches funded from sub-plan allocations.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• You are not a cultivator, traders, input dealers and processors are not the target group of this component, though the department runs separate entrepreneur and skill programmes for them.
• You cultivate outside Madhya Pradesh. Selection is done district by district from the state's own farmer database.
• You are seeking a cash payment. This is not a cash benefit scheme; the department spends the money on the training, travel and stay, and a farmer cannot draw the amount and skip the trip.
• You have already been sent on a funded exposure visit in the same year. Districts spread limited seats across as many households as possible, so repeat selection in a single financial year is unusual.

How much assistance does the programme give?

Assistance under this component is 100 per cent of the prescribed cost norm, so the participating farmer pays nothing. The MIDH Operational Guidelines, which Madhya Pradesh applies to this component, fix the norms as follows:

Two points are worth understanding. First, the within-state norm of Rs 1,000 per farmer per day is inclusive of transport, so the department plans batch size and route to fit inside it. Second, overseas visits are decided in Delhi by the MIDH Division of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, not by the state horticulture directorate, and are therefore very rare for individual farmers.

Related norms in the same MIDH chapter cover officers rather than farmers, Rs 300 per day per participant for a study programme inside the state and Rs 1,000 per day per participant for a study tour to another state, in groups of at least five, plus admissible travelling and daily allowance. A farmer should not confuse these officer rates with the farmer rates above.

How to apply for Krishak Prashikshan tatha Bhraman Karyakram

1. Register on the MPFSTS portal at mpfsts.mp.gov.in, the Madhya Pradesh horticulture farmer and scheme tracking system, using your Aadhaar number, Samagra ID and mobile number. Registration is the gateway to every horticulture department benefit, not only this one.
2. Complete your farmer profile with khasra details, area under horticulture crops, crop names and bank account, so that the district office can see that you are a genuine horticulture cultivator.
3. Select the training and exposure visit component (Krishak Prashikshan tatha Bhraman) from the department's scheme list and submit the application.
4. Meet your block Senior Horticulture Development Officer or the district Deputy Director or Assistant Director of Horticulture with a printout of the application, your land record and your Aadhaar card, and ask to be placed in the next batch.
5. Wait for the batch selection list. The district office draws up the list against the year's approved target and informs selected farmers of the dates, assembly point and destination.
6. Carry your Aadhaar card and the intimation letter on the day of departure, and sign the attendance and beneficiary record maintained for the batch. That record is the basis on which the expenditure is booked and audited.

Where a farmer cannot use the portal, the application can be submitted on paper at the block or district horticulture office, which enters it into MPFSTS on the farmer's behalf. The krishakjagat scheme summary for Madhya Pradesh confirms this offline route to the district Deputy or Assistant Director of Horticulture and to block-level senior horticulture officers.

How to check whether you have been selected

• Sign in to mpfsts.mp.gov.in and open your application status.
• Ask the block Senior Horticulture Development Officer for the batch list; batches are usually finalised a few days before travel.
• Check the scheme page on mphorticulture.gov.in, which publishes district-wise beneficiary lists for training batches conducted under RKVY.

Why applications get rejected or left out

• Target exhausted for the year. The commonest reason. The number of farmer training slots per district is fixed in the annual action plan, and once the physical target is met the remaining applications carry to the next year.
• Not a horticulture cultivator. Applications from farmers whose land record shows only field crops are set aside in favour of fruit, vegetable, spice and flower growers.
• Incomplete MPFSTS profile; missing khasra entry, no Samagra ID, or a mobile number that does not receive the OTP.
• Aadhaar and land record name mismatch, which blocks verification at the block office.
• Withdrawal after selection. A farmer who is selected and does not travel is normally placed lower in the queue the following year, because the seat and the transport cost are already booked.

Key dates and how the programme runs through the year

Krishak Prashikshan tatha Bhraman Karyakram has no single application deadline. The department's annual action plan for horticulture is approved early in the financial year, districts receive their physical and financial targets, and batches are then run through the year, with a clear bunching around the post-kharif and pre-summer months when farmers can leave their fields for a few days. Registration on MPFSTS is therefore worth completing well before the season you want to travel in.

Help and grievance redressal

• District Deputy Director or Assistant Director of Horticulture. The first point of contact for selection, batch dates and complaints about the conduct of a trip.
• Block Senior Horticulture Development Officer, for registration help and for adding your name to the pending list.
• Department of Horticulture and Food Processing, Government of Madhya Pradesh, whose scheme documents, guidelines and beneficiary lists are published at mphorticulture.gov.in.
• CM Helpline for a formal state grievance where a district office does not respond.

No fee is payable to any person for selection in a training batch. If someone asks for money to add your name to an exposure visit list, that is not part of the programme and should be reported to the district horticulture office.