BHOPAL: The special director-general of cooperative fraud, Rajendra Mishra, has instructed banks and cooperative officials that they cannot step back when it comes to paying crop insurance amounts to farmers. The issue of crop insurance for farmers is very serious and the banks and cooperative societies now cannot lag behind in helping farmers avail of their insurance amounts.
Congress leaders, too, raise the issue in favour of farmers from time to time.
Sources said that, in the state, lakhs of farmers are waiting for their crop insurance amount as they had paid the premiums through the banks and also the cooperative societies. Some of them had got meagre amounts considering the premiums paid and the quantum of damage. Whenever the farmers contact the banks or the societies, they are always told that the amount was transferred to the ‘insurance company’ and the institutions cannot do anything in the matter. A similar case came to light recently when DG Mishra visited Vidisha, where one of the bank mangers complained about an insurance claim.
Congress state media vice-president Bhupendra Gupta alleged that, when the time comes to take a new crop insurance policy, the officials of banks and societies, with the help of government staff, pitch for some of the lesser-known companies with the farmers. He added that, sometimes, the farmers keep paying the premium to the companies. These companies siphon off the farmers’ due amounts and, when pay-back time comes, these companies either pay very little, or refuse to pay the full amount; sometimes, nobody even knows where the companies had gone, he alleged.
DG Mishra informed Free Press that instructions had been given to the district police units to organise a monthly meeting with bank officials and other financial institutions on the financial frauds issue. It has also been instructed that the banks and societies cannot step back in helping the farmers get their due crop insurance amounts.
If the banks or the societies feel that a certain company has cheated the farmers, they have to file a case with the police. “They can’t say it’s not their duty. The money was transferred from their institution and they must help farmers all they can,” he added.
