THANJAVUR: Even as 892 villages in the district have been notified this time for insuring samba paddy under the revamped Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, farmers hesitate to insure their crop citing the “meagre” claim payouts by insurance firms in the past two years.
Though samba and thaladi paddy have been transplanted in about 1.38 lakh acres in the district so far, only 14,616 acres of the crop have so far been insured by 5,266 farmers, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department officials said. The cut-off date for paying premium, which is fixed at `542/acre for farmers, is November 15, 2023.
This comes when 1.32 lakh farmers paid up the premium for samba cultivation over a total of about 3.1 lakh acres last year. In 2021-22 samba season, the premium was paid for 3.5 lakh acres of cultivation by 1.34 lakh farmers in the district.
“Farmers are reluctant to insure their cultivation by paying the premium as during the past two years the claims payout released by the insurance companies was meagre,” said R Sukumaran of Orathanadu.
For the 2022-23 season, only farmers from four villages out of the 820-odd notified villages received insurance claim payouts, he said. The year before, compensation reached only farmers in seven villages of the total 891 notified ones, he added.
This comes when officials are exhorting farmers to insure their crops owing to deficient rain this season. They pointed out that under the ‘prevented sowing’ clause when a majority of the insured farmers of a notified area having intent to sow or plant and incurred expenditure for the same are prevented from taking up the activity due to adverse climatic conditions, they will be eligible for indemnity claims up to a maximum of 25% of the sum insured. The villages where 75% of the farmers were prevented from sowing would benefit from the clause. Only insured farmers can, however, avail of the benefit, they pointed out.
A former crop insurance agent said farmers were benefiting while the government-owned Agriculture Insurance company (AIC) was still insuring crops. With the advent of private insurance firms, the claims process has not been satisfactory for the farmers. “As the survey and crop cutting experiments for assessing yield loss were not taken up properly by the officials concerned and the insurance company, the number of farmers benefiting from claims came down drastically,” the source added. “The state itself must implement the crop insurance scheme, as some others are doing, to regain the confidence of farmers in the insurance scheme,” Sukumaran said.