In a first, Haryana has saved a whopping sum of Rs120 crore in the premium amount to be paid to the insurance companies for the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) as the state’s share to insure the kharif and rabi crops of farmers in in 2019-20. The savings, which are expected to touch Rs150 crore, depending upon the number of beneficiaries to be covered under the national crop insurance scheme, were achieved after negotiations with the private insurance companies, which were made to insure the crops even below the lowest bids submitted during the e-auctioning of the process. With this, Haryana has become the first state in the country to negotiate with the insurance companies and save major amount to be paid as premium. Confirming the development, Director General, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Ajit Balaji Joshi told The Tribune there was no provision of negotiation of premium rates for selection of insurance companies once they qualified as lowest bidder. However, the department made a marathon exercise to negotiate the premium rates with the indicative or lowest premium in each cluster. Following negotiations, the insurance companies submitted their final average premium rates, which came at 7.57 per cent for cluster-I by Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited, 6.3 per cent by SBI General Insurance Company Limited for cluster-II and 6.49 per cent by Bajaj Allianz for cluster-III.