The Hindu : Front Page : ‘Modify crop insurance scheme’

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Monday, Jun 16, 2008
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‘Modify crop insurance scheme’

Karthik Madhavan

— File Photo: M. Govarthan

changes sought: The farmers’ grouse has to do with the guideline for claiming insurance for the damaged crop.

ERODE: Farmers in Erode, as elsewhere, are unhappy with the crop insurance scheme, to which they have sought changes. The insurance scheme is something like this. Farmers who get crop loan automatically come under the insurance cover, as a portion of the loan amount is deducted as premium.

Those farmers who do not get crop loan can also come under the insurance cover, provided they pay premium.

National Agriculture Insurance Corporation, a Union Government agency, provides the insurance cover. The Corporation, for each sowing season, releases the level of indemnity, which is crop dependent.

The indemnified farmers’ grouse has to do with the guideline for claiming insurance, which says that unless entire firka (a group of revenue villages smaller than a taluk) is declared affected, farmers will not be eligible for claim.

In other words, the Corporation says that for an insured farmer to get claim, his village and those in the neighbourhood should be affected.

The farmers argue that the guideline is unrealistic, defies logic as often farmers face crop damages at individual level and not village or firka level.

They point to the oft-occurring elephant raid in fields near Sathyamangalam and Bhavani Sagar to buttress their argument.

LBP Agriculturists’ Association president C. Nallasamy says the Corporation should change the guideline to help individual farmers claim insurance.

The district administration, in support of the farmers, has written to the Corporation. A favourable reply is awaited, though.

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