With about 10 days more left for the expiry of the group life insurance extended to all landholding farmers in the age group of 18 to 59 years in Telangana from August 14 last year, Life Insurance Corporation, which is providing the insurance cover, is expecting an increase in the premium amount at least to break-even level for the next year.
The insurance provider has already settled claims worth ₹ 794 crore to 15,880 farmers who died of various reasons till July 31. The insurance company has extended the group life cover at ₹ 2,271.50 per farmer totalling to ₹ 704.01 crore for 30.84 lakh farmers against the eligible number of 30.91 lakh farmers. “As the LIC has already settled claims more than the premium collected by it, the public sector insurance company officials have requested the State government to increase the premium amount for the second year starting from August 14 based on the actual claims settled during the first year. Since it is likely to be more than ₹ 800 crore, the LIC is expecting the premium in that volume,” a senior Agriculture Department official stated.
Undergoing stress
Admitting that about 83% of the total deaths of farmers covered under Rythu Bima till July 31 belonged to weaker and downtrodden sections of the society, the official noted that it is they who undergo a lot of stress not only pertaining to farming but also to socio-economic issues such as healthcare expense of their families, education and marriages of their children. “Although we are not maintaining the statistics with the cause of death of insured farmers, the information we receive from the field clearly indicates that a majority of deaths are caused by illness, mostly with chronic ailments. They ill-afford to bear the medical expenditure for their health issues and ultimately succumb to the illness aggravated by lack of intervention (treatment),” the official explained.
The scheme is purely broad data-based, wherein the farmers are covered irrespective of their health profile. Even the farmers having a few ‘guntas’ of agricultural land are covered under the scheme, the official said adding that not many farmers from the upper social strata of the society are among those in the list of deaths in the insurance scheme.
He also stated that about 25% of the 15,880 farmers died were having landholding only up to 0.5 acre or 20 guntas.
