Pudu govt implementing centre's crop insurance scheme:Minister

The Puducherry administration was implementing in letter and spirit the Centre's crop insurance scheme and covered more than 8,800 paddy growers during 2016-17, state Agriculture Minister R Kamalakannan said today.
He said there was no truth in reports in a section of the media that the administration had not done anything towards implementation of the scheme.
The territorial government was "zealously implementing all the schemes of the Central government" evolved to reduce the distress of farmers and for development of agriculture, he told reporters here.
The total coverage of agricultural land under paddy cultivation under the 'Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana' was 7,362 hectares involving 8,868 farmers in Puducherry, Karaikal and Yanam regions of the union territory in the last year.

The government had paid premium for the insurance and also provided subsidies to the farmers being covered under the PMFBY in the three regions.
Kamalakannan said that Puducherry government was extending the benefit of the insurance scheme to all farmers including those who had not taken loans from banks.

A decision was taken to operate the scheme during the current year (2017-2018) also covering the 'samba' and 'navari' crops in association with a general insurance company, he added.
He said the Union Agriculture Ministry had accepted the plea of the Puducherry government to include the Agricultural Market Committees in Puducherry and Karaikal under the 'e portal' facility.

This, the Minister said would enable farmers get remunerative prices for their produce and eliminate the role of middle-men.
He also said the government's decision to waive Rs 22 crore dues from farmers to cooperative societies and banks under crop loans could not be implemented immediately as Lt Governor Kiran Bedi had sought some clarifications from the Centre.
Kamalakannan said that the wavier of cooperative loans was within the powers of the territorial government.
The Lt Governor had approached the Centre as to why the crops loans due to nationalised and commercial banks also should not be waived and this was delaying the process, he said.

"We can consequently neither waive loans due to cooperative societies nor can we extend fresh loans to farmers," he said adding the government would write to the Centre clarifying the situation.