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| Monday, 19 July 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| Govt will not close down Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board by Uditha Kumarasinghe Agriculture, Livestock and Lands Deputy Minister Bimal Ratnayake said the Government has no intention to close down the Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board (AAIB) which faced a severe financial crisis since the former UNF regime. The Deputy Minister made these observations at the annual general meeting of AAIB Field Officers at the Ministry auditorium on Thursday. The AGM's objectives are to find out ways and means of providing benefits to farmers in a more effective manner by four insurance schemes: farmer's pension scheme, Suwasetha health insurance, stores insurance and livestock insurance implemented by the AAIB for the farmers' welfare. Ratnayake said the country needs an insurance scheme to insure crops. The objective of granting such an insurance scheme is to provide relief to farmers if their harvest is damaged. The former UNF Government attempted to evade the responsibility of granting insurance to farmers and sold the Insurance Corporation. They also finalised arrangements to sell or close down the AAIB, the Deputy Minister said. Ratnayake said the AAIB was being managed with huge financial difficulties."All AAIB employees should act honestly to overcome this. AAIB employees have also faced various problems. The Ministry will take every possible step to overcome the AAIB employees' problems," he said. During the past few years, agriculture and animal husbandry sectors rapidly collapsed. According to resources available in the country, agriculture and animal husbandry spheres should be selected as priority areas to develop the country. However, these two sectors were destroyed during the past few years, he said. Ratnayake said a large number of endemic seeds have been destroyed. Many vegetable seeds are imported spending a large amount of money. As a result, production costs of farmers have rapidly increased while their profits have gone down. The Government plans to change this and take measures to produce and conserve endemic seeds. The agri research sector also recorded a severe setback during the past few years. These research activities which cost millions of rupees were not conducted properly. The Agriculture Ministry will take measures to overcome this. The AAIB should expedite its field activities while giving insurance coverage to farmers, he added. |
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