Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament S. Selvaganabathy has submitted a memorandum to Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar in New Delhi seeking measures to expedite disbursal of pending crop insurance benefits to farmers in Puducherry and Karaikal regions.
The memorandum said that, to a large extent, the National Insurance Company Ltd., which had been engaged by the Agriculture Department for implementing the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, the crop insurance scheme for ryots, was to be blamed for the delay in rendering the benefits and appealed for directions to be issued to the agency to resolve the plight of struggling farmers in the region.
According to the memorandum, the NIC had not acted on numerous requests and reminders about resolution of several issues, and as a result, the Agriculture Department was facing much hardship in processing the applications and settling the claims to the farmers in time.
Among the important issues to be resolved by the NIC were the non-furnishing of details of settled and unsettled claims in respect of Rabi 2019-20 of Puducherry and Karaikal regions, non-furnishing of final business statistics along with demand for subsidy payments in respect of the years 2019-20, 2020-21 and non settlement of claims under localised risk to an extent of ₹18.49 lakh, covering 74 farmers of Rabi II 2019-20 banana crop of Puducherry. These included non adjustment of premium for paddy and cotton during Rabi II 2020-21 for Karaikal region against the amount to be adjusted and non furnishing of estimate on claims in respect of Kharif 2020-2021 and Rabi 2020-21 of Puducherry, Karaikal and Yanam regions.
Mr. Selvaganabathy pointed out that, the claim in respect of Rabi I 2020-21 Paddy II had been settled by the insurance companies in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
