The Department of Farmer Welfare and Agriculture Development, Government of Madhya Pradesh, organized a historic event to disburse the biggest corpus of funds for crop insurance amounting to more than Rs.7,600 crore via direct benefit transfer in the accounts of more than 49 lakh farmers of Madhya Pradesh. The event also marked the growth and development of the agriculture sector under the progressive leadership of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for the past 15 years.
Speaking at the occasion, CM Chouhan congratulated the farmers for their relentless hard work and dedication to turn the vision of Atmanirbhar Madhya Pradesh into reality. CM Chouhan said, “You are the palanhaar of Madhya Pradesh. You are the ones who provide food for us, give us energy and paint a beautiful future for us. The previous governments have neither recognized your contributions to the development of Madhya Pradesh nor have they addressed your concerns to bring relief. But in the last 15 years, we have launched policies focusing on the development and welfare of our farmer brothers and sisters. It is only when the farmers prosper does a state or a nation prosper. I relentlessly worked towards making this a reality today.”
Elucidating further on the steps taken by the state government to bring the benefits of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana to the doorstep of the farmers, CM Chouhan said “We have successfully registered 4 crore 43 lakh 61 thousand 570 farmers in the last five years, after the launch of the scheme. We have seamlessly disbursed an aggregate claim amount of ₹ 16 thousand 750 crore 87 lakh to 73 lakh 69 thousand 614 farmers Rabi 2019-20. This is nothing short of success of 93.41 per cent.”
The state government is carrying out end-to-end computerization of crop insurance. The process of insurance unit determination is completely online by integrating with the land records. It is also using remote sensing technology to estimate the average yield from the field. The process of registration has been linked with the Aadhar card, so that an area can be insured only once, eliminating the situation of duplication.
Due to strong political will and efficient implementation of central and state government policies, the Madhya Pradesh Government has focused on a five-fold strategy for agricultural development, which includes: reduction in the cost of agriculture, increase in production and productivity, agricultural diversification, better product value and disaster management in the agriculture sector.
As a result, the efforts undertaken by the state government in the last 15 years, under the leadership of CM Chouhan, have effected an increase in agricultural production from 2 crore 38 lakh MT, in 2004-05, to 6 crore 69 MT in 2020-2021.
The occasion was graced by the presence of Union Agriculture Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, Agriculture Minister of Madhya Pradesh Kamal Patel, Betul MP Durgadas, MLA Dr. Yogesh Pandarkar, BJP District President Aditya Shukla Babla, BJP State Vice President Pankaj Joshi, Kisan Morcha President Darshan Morya, and ACS Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of MP, Ajit Kesari, along with other dignitaries.
