Three common insurance firms are but to offer ₹446.52 crore, or about 33 per cent, of the estimated declare of ₹1,363.2 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) to the farmers in Odisha until mid-September, in accordance with a state authorities assessment.
The flagship crop insurance scheme which began in 2016, is meant to cowl the loss suffered by farmers for notified crops similar to paddy, groundnut, cotton, turmeric, ginger. tur dal, maize and ragi.
“There is shortfall and inordinate delay in claim settlement because of objections raised by the insurance companies towards conduct of crop cutting experiments for paddy in 541 cases covering 263 insurance units. There is a lot of resentment among the farmers due to delay in claim settlement leading to frequent strikes,” mentioned the minutes of the state-level technical advisory committee assembly under the PMFBY.
With a 29 per cent rain deficit by the top of August final yr, farmers in a number of districts of Odisha had misplaced all hopes of getting any substantial harvest from their farmlands because the window for paddy transplantation actions had nearly closed. As their crops wilted attributable to lack of rainfall within the months of July and August, lots of the farmers, notably in western Odisha districts like Sambalpur, Bargarh and Kalahandi, main paddy producing districts, hoped that the PMFBY would come to their rescue.
In western Odisha district of Bargarh the place farmers in June this yr locked the doorways of the workplaces of the sub-collector of Padampur, block improvement officer, tehsildar and sub-treasury to protest the delay within the disbursement of insurance cash under PMFBY for crop-loss throughout 2021 Kharif season alleged that the insurance firms had rejected crop loss assertions with none concrete cause.
Farmer Ramesh Mohapatra of Bargarh district mentioned the claims of his and a number of other different farmers within the district have been rejected citing mismatch of knowledge. “While the land is in the name of one person, the claimant is his son who tills the land and paid the insurance premium. But the companies are rejecting the claims indiscriminately without citing any reason. As a result, many farmers like me have become loan defaulters which has pushed us out of many state government schemes as the state keeps away people who are defaulters. Many farmers also did not go for fresh insurance this year due to claim settlement issues. If there is a natural disaster this year, who would be responsible for the loss caused to those farmers,” requested Mohapatra.
Farmer chief Krushak Debata of Bargarh mentioned although the businesses used to reject claims of farmers in PMFBY in earlier years, this yr it has been slightly excessive. “There is no control over the companies who don’t even have proper offices in districts. If things go like this then farmers would not be enthused to insure their crop,” mentioned Debata.
In Bargarh district the place many of the rejections have taken place, no less than 5 lakh of the 15 lakh insurance claims have been junked by insurance firms. Of the ₹421 crore declare made by farmers within the district, solely ₹266 crore have been paid up to now. Farmer leaders within the district alleged that in no less than 9 gram panchayats, not one of the farmers who sought claims for crop harm have been reimbursed.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief and Rajya Sabha MP Amar Patnaik, who has written a number of letters to Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, mentioned it appeared insurance firms shelling out crop insurance providers to farmers within the state are enjoying cover and search with them whereas paying claims for crop losses suffered by them. The identical firms don’t bat an eyelid whereas amassing the premium earlier than the crop- chopping train, he added.
“Instead of accepting or rejecting the application of the farmers for insurance within a period of a month of collection of premium, these companies have been waiting for the crop-cutting experiment to be over and then accepting or rejecting the insurance proposals of farmers depending on the extent of crop loss, which is nothing but cheating and fraud on the farmers. This is an extremely unfair and mischievous practice being followed by these insurance companies which makes them liable for fines not only under the new Consumer of Protection Act but also criminally under several provisions of the IPC,” mentioned Patnaik.
In Kalahandi district too, a number of farmers final month wrote letters to the state authorities over the best way the insurance firm rejected the claims. In their letter to the state cooperative division, the 173 farmers wrote that they might be compelled to die by suicide if their claims aren’t authorized by Agriculture Insurance Company of India, the corporate that does crop insurance for Kalahandi.
Both HDFC Ergo and AIC of India didn’t reply to queries searching for a touch upon the allegation by farmers.
Secretary of state cooperation division, Sanjiv Chaddha mentioned 3 days in the past the central degree technical committee had met and authorized ₹100 crore declare of farmers. “The companies are also not be blamed totally. When crop cutting happens, they allege that people are forcing them to sign papers. To resolve the issue we are trying to use satellite as well as physical data from this year. Last time we found that some farmers have applied for 100 acres of land which is quite unusual. Some claims may be fake. To resolve this issue this year we have asked the insurance companies to first verify on ground if someone has paid insurance premium for more than 5 acres,” mentioned Chaddha.
