Patna: Agriculture minister Vijay Kumar Sinha said on Tuesday that ensuring timely, transparent and hassle-free delivery of govt scheme benefits to farmers would be a priority of the Bihar govt.Addressing a joint coordination meeting of the agriculture, revenue & land reforms and cooperative departments, Sinha said better coordination among the three departments would strengthen the farmer-centric delivery system.Revenue and land reforms minister Dilip Kumar Jaiswal and cooperative minister Ram Kripal Yadav, along with senior officials, reviewed the implementation of several schemes and programmes.The meeting focused on the farmer registry and farmer ID under the AgriStack initiative, procurement under the minimum support price (MSP) system, Kisan Credit Card (KCC) and the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.Sinha said farmer registries of more than 53 lakh farmers have already been prepared in Bihar and he directed officials to accelerate the process for covering the remaining farmers. The registry will integrate farmers’ identity, land records and agricultural information, helping ensure targeted delivery of benefits related to seeds, fertilisers, farm machinery, crop insurance, disaster relief and subsidies.Jaiswal said instructions had been issued to revenue officials to ensure smooth implementation of the farmer registry. He said the govt would work towards a system under which a farmer’s registry is prepared simultaneously with mutation of land in his or her name. If a farmer ID already exists, details of newly acquired land would be incorporated into the existing registry.Yadav said efforts were being made to make the MSP-based procurement system more effective and transparent so that farmers receive a fair price for their produce. Linking farmer data with procurement and payment systems would help ensure that benefits reach genuine beneficiaries.The cooperatives department will also strengthen produce procurement, market linkages and institutional credit through PACS and cooperative institutions. The ministers said coordinated efforts would also help streamline beneficiary identification, insurance coverage, crop-loss assessment and compensation under PMFBY.
