The government is looking at imposing penalties for delaying farmers’ settlement claims under the new crop insurance plan, financial services secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal said on Tuesday.
The government is looking at imposing penalties for delaying farmers’ settlement claims under the new crop insurance plan, financial services secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal said on Tuesday.
The government in January launched a crop damage insurance plan to give a shield to millions of farmers who suffer when their crops fail. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is banking on the insurance plan to woo rural India.
Meanwhile, finance minister Arun Jaitley said that agriculture will have to grow “fastest” for the country to get rid of poverty and push the overall GDP expansion.
“If India is to grow and get rid of poverty, the agriculture sector has to grow the fastest... agriculture is critical to the economy,” Mr Jaitley said at a seminar on the recently-announced Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) at Nabard here.
With two successive bad monsoons, the finance minister said a poor rainfall this year will put the “system to test”.
PMFBY, the minister said, will be rolled out in a “mission mode” from April to cover kharif or summer crop from this year itself.
The scheme has the po-tential to reduce distress in the farm sector and “end the scar of farmer suicides” affecting parts of the country.
