New crop insurance scheme on anvil: Radha Mohan Singh

New Delhi

Government today said it will soon come out with a new crop insurance scheme in which farmers will have to pay lower premium and remove anomalies in claim settlement.

Replying to a discussion in the Lok Sabha on the drought situation, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said nine states, including Maharashtra, Telangana, Odisha and Jharkhand, have been affected but the government had put in place contingency plans which has limited its impact.

He also said the Government will set up a Committee to look into the revamp of Minimum Support Price.

Singh also vowed to create a national market for agricultural produce by May 2017, and provide soil health card to every farmer by March 2017.

“Memorandums which have come from nine states mention that 207 districts are affected by drought. When the drought started, we had provided funds to the states. Because of the contingency plan that we had put in place, the impact on productivity has been less as compared to what it should have been,” Singh said.

Drawing parallels between the drought situation in India in 1965, he said two crop seasons were affected then and now and inflation shot up and the weather conditions were similar to this year. Government took a number of steps to contain its impact, including subsidy on diesel and seeds, he added.

Though the debate was initiated by Congress member Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday, the main opposition party did not participate in the discussion today after its members and those of the Trinamool Congress walked out of the House to protest some “objectionable” remarks by a BJP member against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Scindia.

Attacking the UPA government for bringing amendments to the Crop Insurance Scheme, he alleged that the scheme was amended to benefit corporates and not the farmers.

“Ever after 18 months, I am unable to understand whether the amended scheme was for the benefit of farmers or corporates… We have completed the review and will streamline the scheme. We will very soon come out with a new crop insurance scheme removing anomalies in premium and claim settlement,” Singh said. The present scheme covers 70 crops.

As regards support price provided to farmers, Singh said the Agriculture Ministry has circulated the recommendations of an expert committee to other Ministries.

“The support price policy was formulated by UPA government in 2007. We are going to set up an internal committee to look into revamping ways of calculating the support price,” Singh added.

The Minister said there was a need to increase irrigation facility and added that by March 2016, 500 farmers will have soil health cards and the scheme would be extended to every farmer by March 2017.

In order to provide remunerative price to farmers, Singh said the Government is taking steps to establishing a national market for agricultural produce.

“We have received more than 200 proposals from various states. By April 2016, we will connect 300 markets and by April-May 2017, we will connect all markets. We will develop a software to to connect markets,” Singh added.

Having interconnected markets across states will end the prevalence of many mandis in one State and farmers would be able to sell their produce according to their convenience, he said.

The Modi government is committed to bring back the money looted in various scams to exchequer and be with the farmers at the time of crisis, the Minister said.

Singh said although Scindia mentioned about the contributions of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, it was also worthy to mention about first President of India Rajendra Prasad and first Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.

It was former Prime Minister Atal Vihari Bajpayee who gave the slogan of ‘Jai Vigyan’, Shastri who coined ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who wanted a agriculture policy, and their initiatives also helped India to become agriculture intensive country, he said.

“There are people who pretend to talk about farmers, they shout slogans, but they have not worked to remove the anomalies that have existed for years. Modi Government is trying to do away with the anomalies,” Singh added.

PTI