Villagers agitate fearing crop insurance loss

Unable to register for Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana ( PMFBY) online, hundreds of farmers in the district staged an agitation  here on Saturday. T
Villagers agitate fearing crop insurance loss

JAGATSINGHPUR: Unable to register for Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana ( PMFBY) online, hundreds of farmers in the district staged an agitation  here on Saturday. The online registrations for seeking the benefits of PMFBY will commence from the second week of December, villagers claimed. In such a scenario, villagers are apprehensive that they will be deprived of the scheme's benefit since they cannot file the insurance claim without registering themselves online. Moreover, the insurance claim needs to be filed within 48 hours of crop damage according to the government norms. The farmers alleged that they were unable to seek insurance benefits for their paddy crop, which had been damaged due to untimely rains.

"Online registration has not yet started on the PMFBY Website. Without online registration, no one will be able to claim the insured sum. It is a Central Government scheme. The claims are processed only after the post-harvesting survey is conducted for assessment of crop damage," Tapan Dey, District Coordinator of  an insurance firm, said.  The farmers also blamed the Agriculture department officials for their negligence towards conducting a survey for the assessment of crop loss.

The much-hyped PMFBY promised to render monetary assistance to the farmers during crop damage due to natural calamities.  Under PMFBY, launched in January 2016, farmers have to pay just 2 per cent of the sum insured for kharif crops. While the Union government pays 6 per cent of the premium, State contributes 5 per cent towards it.The scheme had apparently failed to reach out to all the farmers in the district. Sources said many farmers have not opted for crop insurance due to lack of knowledge and illiteracy. Farmers also alleged that lack of cooperation between insurance company and Agriculture department had also affected them.

Sources said around 54,921 farmers had insured their paddy crops for the kharif season, while `2.54 lakh has been paid to an insurance firm for the premiums.Meanwhile, farmers claimed that crop grown over 86 acres in district had been affected by the rainfall. However, crops grown over only 66.872 acres had been insured, sources added. Blame it on the lack of awareness, illiteracy or ignorance, thousands of farmers here had not sought insurance of their crops.

"Neither the State Government nor the administration has pressurised the Centre to commence the online registration process. We demanded the authorities to conduct a special survey by Agriculture officials and officials of insurance company for assessment of loss, so that we get the claim amount," Bansidhar Patnaik, a farmer leader said.   Contacted, Assistant Agriculture Officer, Naugaon Nirmalya Nayak said he wasn't sure if the farmers would get the insurance benefits.

 "Yeilding to the stir by the farmers, the Agriculture department accepted the applications from the farmers for claiming their insured sums. But, according to the government norm, we cannot accept it manually,"Nayak added. 

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