Bihar cabinet nod to new farmer assistance scheme

The Bihar Cabinet today gave its nod to "Bihar Rajya Fasal Sahayta Yojana" to provide financial assistance to farmers for their crop damage, an official said.

The new scheme will replace the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and will be implemented from Kharif 2018, Cooperative Department's Principal Secretary Atul Prasad told reporters here.

Making it clear that this is an assistance scheme and not an insurance scheme, he said farmers, both ryot and non-ryot, have been included in the scheme.

Prasad said any farmer registered under the scheme will not have to pay any premium but will be able to avail the benefits he/she incurs crop damage due to natural calamities.

The earlier insurance scheme benefited insurance companies more than the farmers, he said.

Providing the figures of Kharif 2016, he said both the state and the central government provided Rs 495 crore each as premium besides two per cent of premium given by farmers under the old insurance scheme, but only Rs 221 crore was paid by insurance companies as crop damage in the state.

The state government did not even get back the amount what it invested as premium amount (Rs 495 crore) for crop insurance, he said.

Prasad said farmers would get Rs 7500 per hecatare as assistance for upto two hectares if their crop is less than 20 per cent of threshold production limit while the assistance amount will increase to Rs 10,000 per hectare upto two hectares if the crop loss is above 20 per cent of threshold production limit.

On another major decision, Road Construction Department Principal Secretary Amrit Lal Meena said the Cabinet gave its nod to the proposal to set up a Bihar Road Research Institute (BRRI) on the lines of Central Road Research Institute in Patna for carrying out research, development and training in the field of road construction.

The BRRI will be helpful in making engineers, contractors aware of the global technological development taking place in road sector, Meena said.

The cabinet also gave its nod for setting up a private university, Gopal Narayan Singh University, at Jamuhar in Rohtas district, Cabinet Secretariat Department's Principal Secretary Arun Kumar Singh said.

A total of 39 decisions were taken at today's cabinet meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.