THANJAVUR: From 14,616 acres on November 5, the crop insurance coverage for samba and thalady paddy cultivation -- which are being raised over a total of 2.59 lakh acres in the district -- surged to 2.38 lakh acres by November 22.
An extension in cut-off date by a week for farmers to register for the Union government scheme and the Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department’s campaigning, particularly on potential benefits from the scheme’s prevented sowing clause, are attributed for the improved coverage.
Even though 892 villages in the district were notified for insuring samba paddy under the revamped Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, farmers expressed reluctance in insuring their crop as they said the claims paid out by insurance companies in the past two years was meagre.
As on November 5 i.e. 10 days before the cut-off date initially announced, samba paddy over only 14,616 acres was covered, though crop transplantation was complete in 1.38 lakh acres by then. By November 15, the crop insurance coverage improved to 1.69 lakh acres.
On the improvement in coverage, an agriculture official said, “The farmers shed their initial reluctance in insuring their crop this year due to the ‘prevented sowing’ clause pointed out by officials. Under the clause in case the majority of farmers in a village had intention to sow or plant and incurred expenditure for the purpose and later were prevented from sowing due to adverse climate conditions, they are eligible for 25% of the sum insured."
It may be noted that under the crop insurance scheme, farmers have to pay Rs 542 per acre as premium for samba paddy. If 100% yield loss, calculated by four crop-cutting experiments per village, is reported, farmers who insured their crop in the village will get Rs 36,100.
The compensation would vary based on the percentage of yield loss, compared to the average yield during five preceding years. Meanwhile, heeding to a request by the state government to extend the deadline for insuring crop, the Union government pushed the cut-off date by a week i.e. November 22. With this, more farmers came forward to insure their crop.
"Following this, of the 2,59,650 acres of samba and thalady paddy cultivated in the district so far, crop over 2.38 lakh acres was insured by farmers till the cut-off date of November 22," an agriculture official told TNIE.
Sukumaran, a farmer in Kakkarai near Orathanadu, attributed the increase in insurance coverage to also the heightened enthusiasm to take up cultivation -- despite no water release from Mettur dam for irrigation -- due to the frequent rain spells.
While the insurance coverage has improved, it is still lower than last year's figure of 3.1 lakh acres. This is because the total acreage of samba and thalady paddy cultivation was 3.47 lakh acres last year, official sources pointed out.