Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao has announced that the Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited (AICIL) has released the first instalment of ₹ 175 crore to farmers who had insured their crops under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojana (PMFBY) during 2018-19.
Farmers who turned up for the monthly farmers’ grievance redressal day here on Wednesday clapped and thumped desks as Mr. Rao made the announcement while addressing them. He assured them that the district administration would secure the balance amount within the next two weeks.
In the first phase, farmers who had paid the premium through the Ramanathapuram District Central Cooperative Bank would get the crop insurance and the amount would be directly credited to the bank accounts of the farmers. Payment of crop insurance during this month would be of great help to farmers when they had taken up cultivation ahead of the north east monsoon, he added.
The Collector made it clear that there would be no automatic deduction of dues on farm loans or jewel loans availed by farmers and the crop insurance would be fully credited to their accounts. A total of 1.07 lakh farmers had insured their paddy, millets, pulses and oil seeds crops cultivated on 1.19 lakh hectares during 2018-19, he said.
Stating that farmers had suffered crop loss for the third successive year last year, he said the district administration had secured crop insurance of ₹529.06 crore to 1.21 lakh farmers for the year 2016-17 and ₹ 469.99 crore to 1.53 lakh farmers for the year 2017-18.
Responding to farmers’ complaints about encroachments of waterbodies and supply channels, Mr Rao directed the Revenue and Public Works Department (PWD) officials to jointly conduct a block-wise survey and remove the encroachments. They should come out with the list of encroachments removed every month.
He also assured farmers to work out a system to detain stray cattle which destroyed the crops. Farmers could also introduce ‘fine system’ at the village level to address the menace, he suggested.
