CHENNAI: Chief Minister ‘Edappadi’ K Palaniswami on Monday commenced disbursal of insurance claims to farmers who have lost their standing crops during drought.
At a simple function held at the secretariat, 30 farmers from various districts received cheques for insurance claims from the ICICI Lombard and New India Assurance company from the Chief Minister in person. The disbursal at the district level will begin from Tuesday.
The State government had already instructed the insurance companies to release the claims as compensation to the farmers at the earliest, considering extraordinary drought situation prevailing in Tamil Nadu.
An official release here said crop cutting experiments to ascertain the loss to standing crops were continuing and based on the reports, insurance claims would be disbursed to the farmers gradually. The amount would be credited to the bank accounts of farmers directly. Besides, the CM, at the NITI Aayog meeting held in Delhi on April 23, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to expedite the release of insurance claims.
During the fiscal 2016-17, the Tamil Nadu government had paid Rs 412 crore towards insurance premium as contribution. So far, 15.37 lakh farmers who had cultivated agricultural and horticultural crops in 32.24 lakh acres had insured their crops.
The release also recalled the steps taken by the State government to alleviate the sufferings of the farmers due to drought. During the current financial year, Rs 7,000 crore would be provided as crop loan.