The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Only a few farmers brought under NAIS

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Tuesday, Aug 26, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Only a few farmers brought under NAIS

Staff Reporter

Many officials failed to achieve minimum targets

Only five days remain for farmers to apply under the scheme
Officials pulled up for not ensuring disbursement of compensation

Kakinada: District Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi on Monday expressed regret that only a negligent number of farmers, who did not take crop loans earlier (‘non-loanee’ farmers), were brought under the purview of the National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS). Only five more days remain (last date August 30) for the farmers to apply for crop insurance but not even a few thousands out of nearly three lakh ‘non-loanee’ farmers were made to avail of the scheme though top priority was attached to it.

The Agriculture Department has to extend the scheme to non-loanee farmers on a war-footing with the help of model farmers, each one of them enrolling 50 farmers. At least 1,000 non-loanee farmers have to be roped in from each mandal to make NAIS applicable to the maximum possible number of beneficiaries by this month end.

Addressing officials of the Agriculture and Revenue Departments here, Mr. Dwivedi said the non-loanee farmers should have been made to make use of NAIS by opening bank accounts and paying the stipulated premiums. The premiums payable by farmers, who have already taken loans, were automatically deducted from their bank accounts without the involvement of government officials.

Though there was sufficient time for the officials concerned to extend NAIS to non-loanee farmers, most of them failed to achieve bare minimum targets due to sheer negligence. Penal action would be taken against such derelict officials and staff of the departments concerned if they fail to show the desired progress by the time their performance is reviewed in the first week of September.

The Collector also took a serious view of the failure of both the above departments to disburse the compensation to farmers who suffered crop losses earlier. A sum of Rs 6.5 crore was sanctioned for the district but the full disbursements were not made in even half of the mandals, not to mention the submission of utilization certificates. This is a pathetic situation which would be no longer tolerated as the distressed farmers could not be expected to absorb the losses.

Fertilizer plan

Mr. Dwivedi ordered that the fertilizer plan for Rabi 2008 be prepared by September 15. The mandal agriculture officers have to monitor the fertilizer availability and distribution on a daily basis to ensure that the farmers did not face troubles for no fault of theirs. Similarly, paddy seeds have to be sold at 50 percent subsidy without any hitch, failing which stern action would be taken against those fall short of the targets whatever be the reasons. Joint Director of Agriculture T Nandaiah and others were present.

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