Kolkata: State Agriculture minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said that compared to other states in the country, farmers in Bengal take the least amount of loans due to their high income and are well covered under insurance schemes of the state government.
On Monday, the minister said that in Bengal the loan per farmer’s family is 50.4 per cent in comparison to states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan where the loan per farmer’s family in percentage is 93.2, 67.6, 69.9, 54, 54 and 65 per cent respectively.
“Due to the support given to farmers through schemes introduced by the Mamata Banerjee government, farmer’s income in the state increased three times which accounts for 211 per cent increase,” Chattopadhyay said in his budget speech of the Agriculture department which was allocated Rs 9861.46 crores for the financial year 2024-25.
“Bengal is the only state in the country where preventive sowing is also covered under Bangla Shasya Bima (BSB). In this Kharif season, we have provided insurance of Rs 303 crore under this scheme. The Centre too has Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana but the terms and conditions are so stringent that even states such as Gujarat, Jharkhand, Punjab, Bihar have not implemented the central scheme for crop protection,” he added.
BSB, launched during the Kharif season of 2019, has witnessed the enrolment of 68 lakh farmers during Rabi 2022-23 and 59.59 in Kharif 2023. Since inception, 98 lakh farmers have been provided Rs 2838 crores till the end of January 2024.
All 13 commercial crops, including potato, have been covered under BSB. The state government bears 100 per cent premium of all these crops.
Chattopadhyay claimed that since 2017 there has not been a single case of farmer suicide in Bengal and production of all crops such as paddy, pulses, mustard seeds, food grains etc have increased.