Disbursal of claims delayed by up to 33 months Growers of lentils left out
BHOPAL : The state government has been tom-tomming its ‘kisan hiteshi’ (pro-farmer) policies and repeating ad nauseam that it is committed to making agriculture profitable and to doubling the income of the farmers over the next five years.
However, its actions do not seem to match its words. Given that agriculture is a high-risk venture, due to frequent droughts, excessive rains and pest attacks, crop insurance can act as bulwark for the farmers.
However, the CAG report for fiscal year 2015-16 indicates that the government has miserably failed in implementing the crop insurance scheme in the state. Barely one-third of the farmers are covered by it and there are inordinate delays in disbursal of claims.
Only 14.5 per cent of the 88.72 lakh farmers in the state were covered under National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NIAS) in 2010 which grew to 33.8 per cent in 2015.
And the growth was primarily due to compulsory insurance of loanee farmers. A measly 2,800 non-loanee farmers were covered under the scheme.
The sown area covered was also low. Only 17.8 per cent of the total sown area of 1.58 crore hectares of land was covered under the scheme in 2011, which grew to 40.93 per cent in 2015.
“The less coverage of farmers and area defeated the very purpose of the scheme,” the report says. It blames ‘lack of publicity’ for the poor coverage and points out that only Rs 7 lakh was provided for publicity of the scheme.
The government also did not notify urad, moong and lentil for insurance cover, thus depriving the farmers growing these crops of aid in case their crops were ruined.
Delay in notifying crop-wise area to be covered under the scheme deprived farmers of 120 Patwari halkas of the benefits of the scheme and the failure of the government’s agriculture department to provide results of crop cutting experiments placed farmers in 6,702 Patwari halkas out of the purview of the scheme.
Then, there were delays in disbursement of claims ranging from one month to 33 months with the result that the farmers could not repay their loans and their assets were auctioned off.
Publicity failure
n 78 per cent farmers not informed about deduction of premium
n 92 per cent farmers not informed about notified area and notified crop
n 65 per cent farmers came to know about crop insurance not through government’s publicity campaign but through other farmers.
