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To reach a majority of farmers ahead of "Krishi Mahotsav" (agriculture fair) state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan reassured farmers that his government would demand from the center to improve the exiting crop insurance scheme.
Although a budgetary allocation of Rs 2,173 crore has already been made in the state budget and the crop insurance money has already been transferred to a majority of farmers, a ceremonious distribution of crop certificates will continue till 20 the September this year.
As many as 34 districts, according to Chouhan, has been affected by hailstorms, frost and unseasonal spells of rains.
Earlier, the state government had made provisions to prune budgets of other departments to provide this relief to farmers prior to vote-on-account presented in month of March this year.
"A total of Rs 12,000 crore has been disbursed to farmers this year in form of crop insurance, various other subsidies," Chouhan said here in Sehore a nearby town while distributing crop insurance certificates to the farmers. "And this amount has already been deposited in bank accounts of the state farmers," he said. As regards crop insurance as many as 1.4 million farmers will receive certificates.
Earlier, the state government declared 9,800 villages of 49 districts as affected by unseasonal rains and hailstorm.
Madhya Pradesh has raised crop insurance budget by 20 times from Rs 48 crore to Rs 900 crore during the past ten years. It has a long pending demand on crop insurance from the Centre that include modification of National Agriculture Insurance Scheme. "State government wants each farm to be taken as unit while calculating crop losses," a highly-placed government official said.
As a pilot project state also has weather-based crop insurance scheme in few districts since 2008. All crop insurance schemes considered tehsil as unit to calculate crop losses till 2006.
