Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Notice to Government on plea for crop insurance

Special Correspondent

Petitioner says Nagapattinam farmers adversely affected by natural calamities "Eligible farmers should not be deprived of insurance amounts based on improper report"

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered notices to the State Government on a public interest litigation petition seeking distribution of crop insurance amount to farmers in Nagapattinam district.

A Division Bench comprising Justices Prafulla Kumar Misra and M. Jaichandren ordered the notices to the Agriculture Secretary, Director of Agriculture, Special Commissioner of Statistics and Economic Affairs and the District Collector.

According to the petitioner S.K.G. Giridharans farmers in the district were adversely affected in the tsunami, drought and floods in successive years.

Citing government estimation, he said about 95 per cent of the crop had been damaged due to the calamities.

Though the government had announced that crop insurance amounts would be given to the affected farmers, nothing was done following a Statistics Department report that abnormal yield was recorded in one particular field. Maintaining that it was an arbitrary estimation, the petitioner said another report submitted by the Agriculture department stated that the land concerned too suffered damage.

Conflicting reports

He said there were conflicting reports by the two departments with regard to one field, and added that farmers had submitted sufficient materials to establish that the report of the Statistics Department was an improper one.

Eligible farmers should not be deprived of the insurance amounts based on the improper report, he said.

He also added that contrary to the requirement the Statistics Department conducted the experiment separately.

He said the district administration too has had recommended to the government to ignore the Statistics Department report and to release the insurance amount to farmers in view of the successive losses.

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