BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan transferred with a single click, Rs 7618 crores as payment for 49 lakh crop insurance claims of farmers on Saturday.
The state level program in Betul district marked the country's biggest one-time transfer of money into farmers’ accounts under the PM Crop Insurance Scheme.
While transferring the massive sum into the account of farmers for crop damage suffered during Kharif 2020 and Rabi 2020-21 season, the CM said “earlier also, Rs 2876 crore were deposited in the accounts of farmers following crop failure. With this, so far, an assistance of Rs 10,494 crore has been released by the state government to the farmers under the Crop Insurance Scheme.”
“We’ve performed a miracle by depositing Rs 1.76 lakh crore in the accounts of farmers in the last 22 months. This is a government of the farmers, no stone will be left unturned in the welfare of farmers. By laying a network of irrigation schemes in the state, the state government is working incessantly to make crops flourish in every dry field of the state,” he maintained.
“Earlier government had not given the premium amount to the insurance companies. As a result, the farmers could not get the amount of insurance. The previous governments did not even conduct a survey on crop failure, whereas at present, the state government has provided more than Rs 306.78 crores to over 1.28 lakh farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Bima Yojana in Betul district alone.”
He also announced that Rs 66,000 crore will be spent by the state government on the irrigation system upgrading in the state in the coming years. In order to ensure proper use of every drop of water, water will be supplied to the fields through pipelines instead of canals, so that farmers are able to use sprinklers and drips to grow their crops.
While exhorting the farmers to adopt natural farming and use drones in the state, Chouhan said that the youth should set up custom hiring centres, cold storages, godowns etc. All possible help would be provided by the state government. Youth should also take the initiative to take advantage of the government schemes for agricultural infrastructure. The state government will also extend full cooperation in this direction.
Addressing the event through virtual mode, the union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the capacity of irrigation and availability of electricity is increasing continuously in the state. He said that the state is leading in the field of advanced agriculture, which is a matter of pride for all of us.
Madhya Pradesh is playing a remarkable role in all the fields like food grains, milk production, horticulture etc. The central government is providing assistance to the state for developing infrastructure in the field of agriculture. He said that today there is a need to connect the farmers with technology. The Centre has issued a drone policy for this. Grants will also be made available to organisations wishing to buy drones, Tomar added.