Shimla, Mar 19
Around 90 thousands farmers expected to get the benefit of weather based Crop insurance scheme in the state helped insurance companies to earn Rs 101 Cr out of the total Rs 248.87 Cr premium collected by them from 2016 to 2021. This was stated by Horticulture Minister Mahinder Singh Thakur in reply of BJP Member Narinder Bragta. Thakur said that Government would find out why the so much premium was-recovered from the farmers, because as per scheme only five percent of the premium was to be paid by the farmers while the rest of amount was to be contributed by center and state in ratio of 50 per cent each.
Minister said that companies have collected premium of amount Rs 1,01.08 Cr from farmers, Rs 74.02 Cr from State and Rs 77.36 Cr from the Center government.
Thakur said that as many as 95283 farmers got compensation of Rs 34-62 Cr for yr 2016-17, 161524 farmers were paid Rs 49-93 Cr for the yr 2017-18 and 82881 farmers got Rs 44-08 Cr for year 2018-19 and 84623 farmers were paid compensations of Rs 8.24 Cr for financial year 2019-20 however the rest of compensation was pending as the center government did not pay the premium of the year.
Minister said that a meeting would be convened by the Government to understand the facts as more clarity was needed on it. He said that the conditions laid down by insurance companies may not be clear to farmers who are living in the far flung areas, besides even premium are deducted straight from bank account of most farmers, because those who are taking loans are covered under it.
He said that five firms namely EIC, IFCO Tokio, ICICI, Lambdo, HDFC, Argo, Reliance and GIC are engaged for the weather based crop insurance scheme. Minister assured the house that a finding shall be done about collection of heavy premiums from farmers. The minister further stated that in the meeting, plans would also be discussed to bring more farmer under its ambit and ensuring them the compensation. Minister said that weather based crop insurance scheme only cover the crops of Rabi season however Apple crops falls in both, Rabi and Kharif season is to be covered under the scheme. He said that the Government would cover the crop of Apple in tribal areas which is growing in the Kharif season.
Earlier raising this query BJP member Narinder Bragta said that 97 per cent households of state depends upon agriculture however most of farmers are still out of ambit of this insurance scheme. He said that in the apple growing areas where insurance companies are not accessing the damage caused by the natural disaster should have been covered under the scheme.
