Shivraj Singh Chouhan meets Maharashtra soyabean farmers to solve pending insurance problems

New Delhi [India], August 24 (ANI): Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan interacted with farmers in Nanded on the issues of pending insurance of their soyabean crop, on Saturday, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare said in a statement on Saturday.

During the interaction, farmers of the Parbhani district informed the Union Minister about the problem of pending insurance claims of their soyabean crop, as per the ministry’s statement.

In this regard, Chouhan gave instructions to the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Officials to immediately resolve the problem.

Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare held a meeting of the National Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) in this regard on 22 August 2024.

During the meeting, the TAC denied the insurance company’s protest about crop-cutting trials and instructed the company to settle the outstanding claims.

Owing to this ruling, about 2,000,000 farmers in the Parbhani district will get unpaid claims of between Rs 200 and Rs 225 crores.

The Central Technical Advisory Committee has ordered the concerned insurance company to pay the due claim within one week in this regard as of today, August 24, 2024.

The government has been actively working towards the farmer’s issues. To ease the farmers in the country, the government has been implementing Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) since 2016.

The Government has made several interventions to ensure better transparency, accountability, timely payment of claims to the farmers and to make the scheme more farmer friendly, as a result of which the area and farmers covered under the scheme in 2023-24 is at an all-time high. The scheme is now the largest in the world in terms of farmer applications insured.

As per provisions of PMFBY guidelines, the premium share of the farmer is capped at 2 per cent for Kharif crops, 1.5 per cent for Rabi Crops and 5 per cent for commercial/Horticultural crops. Some States have further waived off farmer’s share of premiums due to which there is very less burden on the farmers.

As against the total reported claims of Rs.1,67,475 crore under the scheme, Rs.1,63,519 crore (98 per cent) have already been paid, the ministry informed on August 6 earlier this month.