The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (crop insurance scheme) is proving “beneficial” to farmers in Himachal Pradesh and over 1 lakh farmers have got compensation for their crop losses in natural calamities, HP Agriculture Minister Virender Kanwar said on Sunday.

Kanwar said during the tenure of present government, compensation of Rs 19.54 crore had been given to the 1,01,585 affected farmers for crop loss in the state till date. This includes 8,436 farmers in Bilaspur district, 1,081 in Mandi district, 1,764 in Sirmaur district, 2,659 in Solan district, 3,108 in Chamba district, 45,875 in Hamirpur district, 22,997 in Kangra district, 15,652 in Una district and 13 farmers in Kullu district.

“These farmers were provided compensation under the Central government’s crop insurance scheme for damages to their Rabi and Kharif crops,” he added.

He said besides main crops, cash crops such as tomato, peas, ginger, garlic, capsicum that suffer damages in natural disasters like fire, drought, flood, hailstorm, landslide, pests, diseases etc are covered under the scheme.

“The premium rate of sum assured has been kept at maximum 5 percent for farmers to insure their crop under this scheme, whereas for weather based crop, the sum assured for Kharif is two percent and 1.5 percent for Rabi crop.

If the premium rate is more than five percent then the state and Central Government will bear it in the ratio of 50:50,” he said.

State Agriculture minister said climatic conditions had also been included in the crop insurance scheme and in case a farmer was unable to sow the crop in time due to less rainfall or unfavourable climatic conditions, then too, he can avail insurance cover. Besides this, if the crop kept for drying in the field after harvesting is damaged within 14 days due to cyclonic rain, cyclone, hail and unseasonal rain, then in that case, estimate of the crop loss would be done at field level and the farmer will be provided with compensation.

“The scheme is voluntary for non-indebted farmers while all the farmers taking loan for farmers will be automatically insured by the financial institutions under the scheme.

If the debtor does not want to avail crop insurance under the PMFBY scheme, they can submit self declaration to the concerned bank and exit the scheme.

But this declaration will have to be given by the debtor to the concerned bank branch seven days before the last date of getting the insurance of the season concerned,” he added.

He further stated that the state government is committed to secure the interests of the farmers of the state, for which the government is providing all possible facilities to the farmers.

“The PMFBY has been implemented in the state in the interest of farmers to compensate farmers for their losses due to various types of disasters,” he added.