Odisha seeks extension of crop insurance registration date

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday requested the Centre to extend the cut-off date of registration of farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (crop insurance) till August 16.

In a letter to Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, Patnaik requested him to extend the registration date to safeguard the interests of the state.

Saying that Odisha, with a long coastline, is prone to various natural calamities like drought and flood, he said the state government has planned to cover 25 lakh farmers (22 lakh loanees and three lakh non-loanees) under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY).

"Keeping in view the infrastructure of Government of India for covering at least 40 per cent of the farming population under PMFBY, Government of Odisha has made elaborate plans for covering 25 lakh farmers and 20 hectares area under the programme to provide a safety net to the farmers," informed Patnaik.

He said widespread publicity campaign was taken up to mobilise the farmers accordingly.

Giving reasons for the extension of the registration date, the Chief Minister said: "While the registration of the farmers had picked up momentum, the entire system got upset due to snags in the central crop insurance portal."

"The linking of common service centre portal (the main registration point for non-loanee farmers) to crop insurance portal had failed, thereby increasing the load on the banks who were already busy with covering the loanee farmers," said the Chief Minister.

At this crucial juncture, the facilities of directly uploading of data by the banks as well as the offline utility also did not work. As a result, the farmers were compelled to run from pillar to post for registering under the programme, he added.

He also said at certain places even law and order problems arose due to a complete failure of the system of registration.

--IANS

cd/vgu/sac