Odisha Chief Secretary Reviews Progress of Famers’ Enrolment under PMFBY

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena on Tuesday took stock of enrolment of farmers under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) in the State.

Chairing a high level review meeting, the Chief Secretary appreciated the effort of the field-level officials under the leadership of Collectors in enrolling more than 13 lakh farmers within a brief period and directed them to achieve the target by 5th August.

The Principal Secretary of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment and Cooperation Department, Dr Arabinda Kumar Padhee, the Director, of Agriculture & Food Production, Prem Chandra Choudhury, the Director, of Horticulture, Rohit Kumar Lenka and the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Uddhab Chandra Majhi attended the meeting held in the 2nd-floor conference hall of Lok Seva Bhawan and all Collectors from the districts were linked virtually through OSWAN platform.

The team of officials from the Cooperation Department and Agriculture & FE Department also attended the meeting.
Intimating the house about the decision of the Government of India to extend the cut-off date of enrolment to 5th August on the request of the Government of Odisha, the Principal Secretary, Dr Padhee expressed his displeasure over enrollment of a negligible number of non-loanee farmers by the Banking network. The Cooperative Banks were given the target to enrol 1 lakh non-loanee farmers by the 5th of August and the other Commercial Banks were also asked to enrol 1 lakh non-loanee farmers too.

The Common Service Centres were given the target to enrol 4 lakh non-loanee farmers within the extended cut-off date. After the meeting, Dr Padhee informed that the target of enrolment of 25 lakh farmers in view of the decision of the State Government to bear farmers’ share of the premium will easily be achieved within the cut-off date so that at least these many number of farmers can benefit from the pro-farmer decision of the State.