Bhubaneswar, July 25 : Odisha cooperation minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak has written a letter to Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar for an early settlement of claims under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana (PMFBY) for kharif 2021. In his letter, Nayak said the Odisha government was continuing to implement PMFBY since kharif 2016 even though many of the neighbouring states were opting out of the scheme. In order to augment the scheme implementation process, the state government has taken several initiatives. Odisha is the first state to introduce Smart Sampling Technique (SST) for the selection of plots for conduct of crop cutting experiments (CCEs) and second state to integrate state land records portal with national crop insurance portal, he said. The state government has also conducted a special drive for capturing of CCE data using mobile app leading to maximum capturing of such data. Besides, the state has also formed district and block level monitoring committees to oversee programme implementation, pointed out Nayak. The minister further said the Kharif season of 2021 was fraught with many natural calamities affecting many crops, especially paddy, which is the major crop of the state and accounts for nearly 98 per cent of the area insured. The estimated claim for the season is about Rs 1,364 crore out of which claims to the tune of Rs 748 crore have been settled, so far. It has come to the notice of the state government that in many cases the notified insurance companies have raised objections regarding the conduct of CCE and held up the claims, Nayak said. Though the objections raised by the insurance companies have been duly complied, the claims have not been settled which has led to farmers unrest in many places and likely to affect the ongoing enrolment process for kharif '22, he said. Therefore, Nayak sought personal attention of Tomar into the matter and requested to issue the necessary directive to the insurance companies for the settlement of claims at the earliest for safeguarding the interest of the farmers. /IANS