Tamil Nadu government fails to notify crop insurance to ryots: Report

NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu government may cry hoarse that the state is facing worst-ever drought in 140 years, but the administration was “least prepared” in handling the crisis and did not even issue notification to farmers for insuring their crops, a stinging report by Centre for Science and Environment has said.

The report by CSE on Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme) singled out Tamil Nadu for “keeping quiet” and “doing nothing” to create awareness among farmers about the insurance scheme, highly subsidized by the government.

Especially after the 2015 Chennai floods and the expected drought, the state government should have ideally gone on an “overdrive” to enroll farmers into the insurance scheme, but the state even brought out the notification quite late.

“If the scheme was well used by the state government, there would have been no need for farmers from Tamil Nadu to protest in Jantar Mantar for 40 days,” Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director-General of CSE and author of the report that was released recently, told Deccan Chronicle.

About Tamil Nadu, the report said the state brought only 13,000 farmers under the scheme in the 2016 Kharif season, which is 90.97 per cent decrease from 2015 Kharif season data.

“More than 1.44 lakh loanee farmers and 0.03 non-loanee farmers availed the insurance scheme in 2015 Kharif, while only 16,000 loanee farmers availed it in 2016 Kharif,” Mr Bhushan said, adding that the state government, however, increased the average sum insured per hectare from Rs 55,656 to Rs 67,795.

P. R. Pandian, president of the Coordination Committee of All Tamil Nadu Farmers Association, agreed with most findings of the report and said the state government “never showed keen interest” in bringing farmers under the insurance scheme.

“In Delta, awareness about crop insurance is high but in other areas it is quite low. Another problem with crop insurance is that it has been given to private players who charge high premium. However, there is no doubt that farmers will be better off if their crops are insured,” he said.

Agreeing with Pandian, P Shanmugham, General Secretary of Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Association affiliated with CPI-M, said the government should create more awareness about crop insurance scheme.

“There is no doubt that the state government has failed on all fronts,” he said. However, he also blamed the insurance companies of charging “high premium.”