Beed Collector, MD Singh Receives PM Excellence Award Under PMFBY

New Delhi, April 21: The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi conferred the Beed District Collector, Shri M Devendra Singh with Prime Minister Excellence Award in Public Administration for effective implementation of the Priority Program, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana in the Beed District of Maharashtra. 

The real power of democracy vests in transparent people-oriented administration. The objective of every administrative officer should be to make benefits of all the welfare schemes available to the grassroots. The Beed District Collector, Shri MD Singh proved his mettle with the effective implementation of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) in his District and was in the Capital to receive the prestigious Prime Minister Award for Excellence in Public Administration at the hands of the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi today.

A two-day event was held at Vigyan Bhavan, to recognize the outstanding services delivered by the administrative officers and reward the exemplary work for citizen’s welfare by Districts / organizations of the Central and State Governments.  The Power Point Presentation of all the Administrative Officers was presented to the Cabinet Secretary for scrutiny and selection and on Saturday, the distribution of the Awards took place.

Efforts Taken In Making PMFBY Successful in Beed District

The Collector, Shri Singh, after receiving the Award on 12^th the Civil Services Day, expressed his deep satisfaction for the Award. He said, the credit of success for effectively implementing this Yojana goes to all the concerned officers in the revenue department, agriculture, Banks, Insurance agencies and most importantly the representatives of the District. Informing about his District, he said Beed District is a rain fed and drought prone region. It has a strong reason to get all farmers covered under PMFBY. There are 6lakh 51thousand 783 farmers and the area under cultivation has increased to 7.53 lac hectares from 6.58 lac ha.  For ensuring success of this Yojna, a toll free whatsapp number was given to all the concerned – Farmers, revenue office, Banks, insurance agencies, nodal officers to get speedy solution in case of problems. 

Shri Singh said that Beed district is the first one to get maximum number of applications for Kharif 2016 and Kharif 2017 under this Yojna. Adding further, he said it is highest in the state for maximum non-loanee farmers to get insured out of total insured farmers in the district. Special efforts through Informative education to farmers were undertaken, so as to avoid any discrepancies and delays accounting in the delay of the payments to farmers, he informed. Shri Singh informed that more than 90% of farmers have enrolled under PMFBY, which shows the farmers have trust and faith in the yojana.

Strategy Adopted For successful implementation of PMFBY

Speaking on the strategy adopted, the Collector informed about conducting special Gramsabhas in all 1031 Gram Panchayats through which the farmers were kept informed. From November 2017 onwards, informed Singh, that all the offices and Banks were kept opened to attend all the issues concerning the farmers, their premiums and their crops. In case of complaints, the farmers lodged it with their nodal officers.  The nodal officers, in turn, conveyed it to the concerned officers to get a speedier solution.

Collector, MD Singh speaking on Accountability and Transparency

The whole district machinery worked in tandem, ensuring accountability and transparency and timely solution. Use of social media also helped to a greater extent, he said.  However, the game changer in the whole exercise has been the ‘Aadhar Card’, said Singh.  The complete campaigning focus was individualistic keeping, ‘the farmer’ in focus, and for this, he added that regular reviews through bankers’ meeting and tehsil level committees were held. Proper monitoring at all stages, such as premium collections, reporting, claim settlement and disbursement was done. He also informed, that a sum of 45 crores was paid as insurance, i.e. 75% Insurance was paid and the farmers could get the premium of 223.84 cr in year 2016. In 2017, 80% of farmers registered under this Yojna paid 55 crore premium under PMFBY.

PM Awards for Excellence in Public Administration has been instituted since 21 April, 2005-06 with a view to acknowledge, recognize and reward the exemplary work executed with dedication and commitment by the administrative officers. A total of 3009 applications from 643 districts across the country were received by the central government. Four priority programs were identified for the award: 1 Pradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana, 2. Promoting Digital Payments, 3. Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban and Rural, and   4. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana. In addition, awards for Innovation for Innovation for Central, State organizations including Districts were also given.