Nearly a month after the protesting farmers in Haryana’s Kurukshetra district faced police lathicharge when they had blocked the Delhi-Ambala national highway demanding minimum support price for sunflower crop, now the farmers of Hisar district are gearing up for an agitation seeking release of insurance claims for their damaged crops.
After a 25-day-long dharna in front of Hisar mini-secretariat, over 1,000 farmers Monday held a meeting at the venue. The farmers resolved to block all roads leading to the mini-secretariat — which houses offices of all district administrative officers including the deputy commissioner and superintendent of police — on July 5, if all the claims were not released by then.
Mandeep Nathwan, the president of Pagdi Sambhal Jatta Kisan Sanghrash Samiti, a body of Haryana farmers, said the agitation would be indefinite if the voice of farmers was not heard. “We have come to know that the farmers of seven districts are facing problems as the private insurance companies have not released their insurance claims. On the same issue, the farmers of Sirsa district have been sitting on a dharna at Nathusari Chopta for the past 60 days,” Nathwan said.
The farmers in Hisar district are demanding release of compensation for damage to their crops caused due to excessive rain coupled with hailstorms and disease to their crops during kharif 2021-22. The farmers maintain the private insurance company should have released all the claims by February 20 this year but their insurance claims were not released despite the passage of nearly three months.
The farmers allege that the private insurance company reverted the premium of nearly 28,000 farmers of Hisar district after sensing that their cotton crop was under threat due to heavy rain in August 2022. It’s learnt that when this matter came to the notice of Hisar Deputy Commissioner Uttam Singh, he took it up with the authorities of the private insurance company. Officials said currently the applications of such farmers are being examined by the insurance company.
However, to insist on the release of insurance claims, the farmers along with their tractor-trolleys started camping in front of the Hisar mini-secretariat on May 11. They set up a pakka morcha on the pattern of the one at Delhi borders where they had sat for nearly one year to oppose three contentious farm laws — which were later repealed. At Hisar morcha too, the farmers are being served with langar (community food) with the support of local residents.
Estimating total insurance claims to be around Rs 424 crore for Hisar farmers, the officials said the insurance claims worth Rs 264 crore have been credited to the bank accounts of affected farmers in the past 20 days. The deputy director of Haryana agriculture and farmers welfare department, Vinod Phogat, said Tuesday that a process has been initiated to send nearly Rs 69 crore more in the bank accounts of farmers after fixing objections on their claims. The officials said that the issues related to the remaining insurance claims were also being verified.
The Hisar farmers have vowed to intensify their agitation less than a month after their counterparts in Kurukshetra faced a police lathicharge on June 6 when they were blocking the national highway to seek minimum support price for sunflower seeds. With the issue taking centre stage, the government then had accepted their demands.
