E-Paper
Odisha: 33%crop insurance claims pending under PMFBY
There is a lot of resentment among the farmers in Odisha due to delay in crop insurance claim settlement, leading to frequent strikes
Three general insurance companies are yet to give ₹446.52 crore, or about 33 per cent, of the estimated claim of ₹1,363.2 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) to the farmers in Odisha till mid-September, according to a state government review.
The flagship crop insurance scheme which started in 2016, is supposed to cover the loss suffered by farmers for notified crops such as 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,” said the minutes of the state-level technical advisory committee meeting under the PMFBY.
With a 29 per cent rain deficit by the end of August last year, farmers in several districts of Odisha had lost all hopes of getting any substantial harvest from their farmlands as the window for paddy transplantation activities had almost closed. As their crops wilted due to lack of rainfall in the months of July and August, many of the farmers, particularly in western Odisha districts like Sambalpur, Bargarh and Kalahandi, major paddy producing districts, hoped that the PMFBY would come to their rescue.
In western Odisha district of Bargarh where farmers in June this year locked the doors of the offices of the sub-collector of Padampur, block development officer, tehsildar and sub-treasury to protest the delay in the disbursement of insurance money under PMFBY for crop-loss during 2021 Kharif season alleged that the insurance companies had rejected crop loss assertions without any concrete reason.
Farmer Ramesh Mohapatra of Bargarh district said the claims of his and several other farmers in the district have been rejected citing mismatch of data. “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,” asked Mohapatra.
Farmer leader Krushak Debata of Bargarh said though the companies used to reject claims of farmers in PMFBY in earlier years, this year it has been a little high. “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,” said Debata.
In Bargarh district where most of the rejections have taken place, at least 5 lakh of the 15 lakh insurance claims have been junked by insurance companies. Of the ₹421 crore claim made by farmers in the district, only ₹266 crore have been paid so far. Farmer leaders in the district alleged that in at least 9 gram panchayats, none of the farmers who sought claims for crop damage have been reimbursed.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Amar Patnaik, who has written several letters to Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, said it seemed insurance companies dispensing crop insurance services to farmers in the state are playing hide and seek with them while paying claims for crop losses suffered by them. The same companies do not bat an eyelid while collecting the premium before the crop- cutting exercise, 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,” said Patnaik.
In Kalahandi district too, several farmers last month wrote letters to the state government over the way the insurance company rejected the claims. In their letter to the state cooperative department, the 173 farmers wrote that they would be forced to die by suicide if their claims are not approved by Agriculture Insurance Company of India, the company that does crop insurance for Kalahandi.
Both HDFC Ergo and AIC of India did not respond to queries seeking a comment on the allegation by farmers.
Secretary of state cooperation department, Sanjiv Chaddha said 3 days ago the central level technical committee had met and approved ₹100 crore claim 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,” said Chaddha.
