Chandigarh
The Punjab government has decided to set an early deadline for the implementation Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) for the upcoming kharif sowing season. Earlier, the government was planning to rollout the scheme from the 2024 kharif sowing season.
Kharif crops, such as paddy, are sown during the onset of the monsoon season around the month of June and harvested at the end of this season during the months of September and October.
Eight years after it was launched by the central government as its flagship scheme to provide insurance cover to the farmers for their crops, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab has planned to rollout the scheme this year by keeping an outlay of ₹700 crore in state budget. The announcement is likely to be made by finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema on March 10.
The scheme partly sponsored by the Centre was launched in 2016 but the then SAD-BJP government in Punjab rejected it saying that its parameters and conditions don’t suit the state farmers and will put an additional burden on them for the premium to be paid. The state peasantry also built pressure on the state government against adoption of the scheme. Later, during the Congress regime, it was proposed to start a state-level crop insurance scheme but it couldn’t take off.
“We have decided to take an early call and set the scheme rolling,” said Punjab chief secretary VK Janjua. The process for implementing the scheme is at an advance stage, he said adding that efforts are being made to keep village as a unit to make the scheme practical. According to the provisions of the scheme, a block that comprises a cluster of villages was taken as a unit.
{{/usCountry}}“We have decided to take an early call and set the scheme rolling,” said Punjab chief secretary VK Janjua. The process for implementing the scheme is at an advance stage, he said adding that efforts are being made to keep village as a unit to make the scheme practical. According to the provisions of the scheme, a block that comprises a cluster of villages was taken as a unit.
{{/usCountry}}Janjua said the government wants to implement the scheme so as to save farmers from incurring losses. In the past two seasons, cotton and wheat growers have suffered loses. Efforts are on to tweak the scheme so it suits the requirements of Punjab farmers, he added.
According to reports, the Punjab government will contribute ₹500 crore annually to the scheme and the Centre will also provide the matching grant. Farmers’ contribution as premium will be ₹200 crore. “As per our initial estimates, we will be able to cover 40% of the crop sown area in the state under insurance cover,” said a senior official in the state agriculture department. At least 40 lakh hectares (100 lakh acres) is cultivated in the state with 34 lakh hectares under wheat in rabi and 31 lakh hectares under paddy in kharif season.
The Centre is also pushing the state to adopt the scheme to cut expenditure of the disaster relief, which is used to pay compensation to farmers for crop loss. Telangana, Gujarat and Bihar, which had initially rejected the scheme, have already adopted it.