Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today pleaded with the Government of India (GoI) to make the recently announced Crop Insurance Scheme broad based so that the small and marginal farmers could reap maximum benefit out of this initiative aimed at bailing out the beleaguered peasantry from current agrarian crisis. Dwelling on the various aspects of this newly launched scheme during marathon discussions in a meeting at Chief Minister’s Office this morning, the Chief Minister pointed out that though this was a positive step forward but still short of desired targets to achieve the ultimate goal of farmers’ well being.
The Chief Minister impressed upon the Centre to alter certain provisions of scheme to make it far more farmer friendly and conducive to their inherent hardships due to substantial loss suffered by them on account of damage caused to the crops owing to natural disasters, calamities and climatic abression. Mr. Badal said that the present scheme need to be further fine tuned to safeguard the interests of beleaguered peasantry especially the small and marginal one, which was already reeling under whopping debt. He also impressed upon the GoI to exempt the category of small and marginal farmers from paying premium for crop insurance in view of their pressing circumstances due to diminishing returns in terms of profit from their crops.
The Chief Minister urged the Centre to consider plot based farm as a unit instead of village, as envisaged in the new policy, for crop insurance. He reiterated that existing norms under the new policy should be thoroughly examined and revisited to adequately meet the needs of the farmers and farm sector, especially in green revolution states like Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh. Mr. Badal asked the Additional Chief Secretary (Development) to prepare a comprehensive proposal so as to enable the state government to take up this matter with the GoI to effect requisite changes in the new Crop Insurance Scheme.
Prominent amongst other present in the meeting included Cabinet Ministers Jathedar Tota Singh and Mr. Madan Mohan Mittal, Additional Chief Secretary Mr. Suresh Kumar, Special Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr. Gaggandip Singh Brar, Chairman Punjab State Farmers’ Commission Dr GS Kalkatt, Chairman Punjab Mandi Board Mr. Ajmer Singh Lakhowal, Vice Chancellor Punjab Agriculture University Dr BS Dhillon, Director Agriculture Dr Gurdial Singh and President Kisan Union Mr. Balbir Singh Rajjewal.