By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 9 Mar: State Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Ganesh Joshi participated in the inauguration programme of ‘Simple Agricultural Insurance’ by the Indian Agricultural Insurance Company in collaboration with the Silk Directorate, Uttarakhand, for the silkworm farmers of the state at a local hotel in Dehradun.
After inaugurating the event, Minister Joshi said in his address that Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays special attention to protecting the interests of farmers. He said that many schemes are being implemented at the national level so that the farmers of the country get maximum benefits and their economic status improves. Many significant efforts are being made at the national level to save farmers from economic loss due to natural causes, one of which is the operation of the crop insurance scheme. Keeping this in mind, in Uttarakhand also, crops are being insured to compensate the farmers.
Minister Joshi added that the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana is being run by the Agricultural Insurance Company of India in the state from the kharif crop of 2016 onwards. Along with the crop insurance scheme, the priority of the government is to provide benefits of the scheme to the farmers associated with other sectors related to agriculture, such as silk, fisheries, animal husbandry, etc. Under this initiative, the Silkworm Insurance Scheme has been launched today by the Silk Directorate and Indian Agricultural Insurance Company under the Saral Krishi Bima.
The Minister added that Uttarakhand has become the first state in the country to start this scheme.
Joshi said that, at present, about 12,000 farming families are associated with sericulture in the entire state, out of which 6691 farmers produced about 300 MT silk cocoons last year by doing mulberry silkworm rearing. Since it is necessary for the weather to be favorable for the work, due to excessive heat or excessive rain, there is a high possibility of disease in silkworms, due to which farmers do not get the full benefit of their hard work. He said that in order to save them from this loss, the scheme has been started as a pilot project covering 250 farmers of five development blocks in the four districts of Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar.
In the coming years, the entire state would be covered by this scheme. Joshi announced that the insurance premium amount will be borne by the state government in the coming years, for which the Director, Silk, Uttarakhand, should immediately prepare a proposal and make it available to the government.
Present on this occasion were Chairman, Silk Federation, Ajit Chaudhary, CMD, Agriculture Insurance Company of India, Girija Subramaniam, Director, Silk Department, Anand Kumar Yadav, CGM, NABARD, VK Bisht, DGM, RBI, Manoj Kumar, GM, Indian Agriculture Insurance Company, D Singh, CEO, Animal Husbandry, RK Negi, Tea Board Director Jagdish Camp and many others.
