Agriculture ministry signs MoU with UNDP for strategic partnership on agriculture, crop insurance & credit

New Delhi: The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) wherein UNDP will provide technical support towards Centre’s aspirational Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) scheme & Kisan Credit Card – Modified Interest Subvention Scheme.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Union Minister of Agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar by CEO-PMFBY Ritesh Chauhan and UNDP Resident Representative Shoko Noda. Under the MoU, UNDP will leverage its expertise in systems and global know-how for supporting the Ministry of Agriculture for the implementation of combined agriculture credit and crop insurance. Union Minister of Agriculture for State, Kailash Chaudhary and Secretary, Agriculture, Manoj Ahuja also witnessed the signing ceremony.

While addressing the representatives from the respective organizations, The Union Minister said, “Under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Union Agriculture Ministry is implementing the schemes with complete transparency in the interest of crores of farmers of the country. Direct benefit is being provided to all the farmers.”

Tomar further added, “While the farmers paid Rs 21000 crore premium under PMFBY, they have received more than Rs 1.15 lakh crore as compensation. This shows that the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana is working in the interest of the entire farming community. Similarly, in the Kisan Credit Card Scheme, massive efforts are being made to give benefits to the farmers who could not take benefit of the scheme earlier. Efforts are being made to reach out to all small farmers, livestock farmers and fishermen.”

KCC-MISS and PMFBY were launched with the aim to tackle the problematic areas of previous Schemes and to map out a structure that affords better implementation options for all stakeholders while achieving the desired results. To that effect, several new provisions have been incorporated in the Schemes. One of the biggest features of the current schemes is that they apply uniformly across the entire country and have a provision to cover all crops.

As per the MoU, UNDP will provide responsive, demand-driven technical assistance for effective implementation of agriculture credit and crop insurance, as well as providing capacity development and Information, Education & Communication (IEC) support to existing national and state institutions, keeping in mind the interest of small and marginal farmers, women farmers, sharecroppers, tenant and non-loanee farmers.

On this strategic partnership with UNDP, Tomar said, “Technical assistance provided by UNDP in the last 4 years has yielded good results. I am sure that through this partnership, we will obtain even better results in implementation of crop insurance and agricultural credit schemes.”