Chamba aims to insure crops of 60k farmers

Our Correspondent

Chamba, June 11

In a step to insure the farmers’ crop against damages dues to natural calamities and accidents, Chamba Deputy Commissioner (DC) DC Rana in a recent meeting directed officials to apprise agriculturists about the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). The district aims to cover over 60,000 farmers of the district under the scheme.

The PMFBY is being run to compensate the loss of standing crops due to natural calamities like water logging, hailstorm, landslide, cloudburst and fire due to sky lightning. In an official communique, the DC said the Agriculture Department and Horticulture Department, along with the banks, had been asked to apprise the farmers of the district about the insurance scheme’s benefits.

“PMFBY is very simple for farmers holding Kisan Credit Cards as they neither have to go to the bank or government offices to get the crop insured nor to get the compensation for damages caused by natural calamities,” he said.

Since a premium amount of insurance under the scheme is deducted from the farmers bank account, he has to submit an application. “After the harvest, the losses are assessed and the compensation amount is sent in the farmer’s account,” Rana said.

The DC also mentioned that a total of 4,744 farmers of the district had got their Kharif crops insured during last year by depositing a premium of about Rs 7.18 lakh under the scheme.

He appealed to the farmers to get registered under the PMFBY before July 15.