Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 4: Janata Dal United (JDU) president from J&K, GM Shaheen today met Ramnath Thakur, Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, at New Delhi.
During the meeting, Shaheen raised urgent and substantive concerns affecting the agrarian community of Jammu and Kashmir and pressed for decisive Central intervention to stabilize farm livelihoods.
Shaheen strongly urged the Minister to extend enhanced subsidies on agricultural chemicals, inputs, and fertilizers to farmers in Jammu and Kashmir, citing sharply rising input costs, constrained access to quality inputs, and the region’s unique climatic vulnerabilities that inflate cultivation risks. He emphasized that timely and targeted subsidies are critical to sustaining productivity, protecting small and marginal farmers, and preventing distress-driven exits from agriculture.
Further, Shaheen categorically demanded comprehensive, end-to-end crop insurance coverage for farmers across Jammu and Kashmir, stressing that frequent weather shocks, hailstorms, frost damage, and erratic precipitation have exposed cultivators to recurrent and crippling losses. He called for full insurance cover with simplified enrollment, faster claim settlement, and transparent loss assessment, ensuring that farmers receive prompt compensation without bureaucratic delays.
Shaheen underlined that agriculture remains the backbone of Jammu and Kashmir’s rural economy and warned that continued neglect of farm risk mitigation would have serious socio-economic repercussions. He appealed to the Ministry to adopt a region-specific policy framework that recognizes J&K’s terrain, seasonality, and input-cost asymmetries, and to operationalize relief measures on a priority basis.
The Minister gave a patient hearing to the representations and assured that the issues raised would be examined with due seriousness.
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