August 2, 2018
Ahamed Hassan speaks on the issue of injustice to farmers in the name of crop insurance
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sir, I would like to speak on the injustice being done to farmers on the name of crop insurance.
The much ambitious crop-insurance scheme, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) was launched by the government in February 2016 to protect farmers in distress. Since the inception of the scheme, the overall area insured had initially increased with the hope on the government. Whereas the overall area insured has later reduced by 25% due to delayed payments by the government. The area covered under the scheme is merely 1/4th of the total cropped land in the country.
The insurance companies received a premium of Rs 4,383 crore from farmers and Rs 17,796 crore from Centre and state governments as subsidy. So, out of a total of Rs 22,180 crores, only Rs 12,949 crore was given to the farmers under PMFBY i.e. just 58% of the total allocation only has been utilized for farmers and their welfare. The farmers have been deterred to further insure their crops because of these delayed or non-payment of the claims. These farmers were looking at the prospect of a better paid a premium, which is now an additional cost for them, but they have received merely Rs 5 and Rs. 18 cheque from the companies (according to official data).
Besides the delayed payments from Insurance companies, now the government imposed Aadhaar as mandatory to claim the crop insurance under the PMFBY scheme. This is another deterrent for farmers of the country. In the midst of the all chaos between Supreme Court judgments and Central government notifications, how can common man know whether it is necessary or not. Not all people in the country possess aadhaar card and not more than 40% of the people have linked aadhaar cards with their bank accounts. Supreme Court has ordered that Aadhaar is not mandatory for availing the benefits of the central government schemes.
Sir, the CSC application which is generated under the PMFBY website carries a picture of Modi on it. The Subsidy which is paid to farmers in the country is equally shared by the Centre and the State governments on 50:50 basis. Then why is only the picture of Mr Modi being displayed.
This is not a Central Sector Scheme, why is the centre taking all the credit? This shows the Fake federalism that the centre wants to portray to the citizens of the country.
