When Ajab Singh, a farmer from Tiladia in Sehore district went to his bank to check his savings account a couple of days back he was shocked to see amount of compensation he received for his damaged crops under PM Crop Insurance Scheme. It was merely Rs 43.
Dhanpal Singh, another farmer from the village got a marginally higher amount – Rs 49.96. He had paid Rs 1342.70 as the premium against the insured sum of Rs 67,135 for his crops in 2.3 hectare of land.
The farmers got the compensation against damage to their kharif crop last year. The worst compensation went to Badami Lal who received Rs 4.70. These farmers who are among many in the district who received marginal amounts as compensation, are now disappointed and angry.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the nationwide crop insurance scheme from Sehore in February 2016. Sehore is also home district of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and constitutes a part of union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s parliamentary constituency Vidisha.
Dhanpal Singh said the village had 52 farmers who had opted for the insurance scheme and the total amount they had got was Rs 3061.50 whereas about 50 to 60% of their crops were damaged.
Farmers from Sehore and Shyampur areas suffered the worst damages. Of the two areas 1.57 lakh farmers opted for the insurance scheme of whom 43,850 have received compensation amount, according to official sources.
Dhanpal Singh said, “Our crops were being damaged for several years. How could a farmer be expected to carry on farming in such a situation when we are getting such measely compensation?”
Kriparam Malviya, manager of primary cooperative committee Kriparam Malviya said he had received a number of complaints from farmers who were highly upset over the insignificant amount of compensation.
Deputy director in the department of agriculture in Sehore, Avneesh Chaturvedi said the insurance companies gave compensation on the difference between early estimate of the crop and the yield assessed during a survey. Then the figures were fed to computers of the banks.
He said it remained to be seen if there was any clerical error in the process or whether the process to arrive at a compensation figure was faulty.
The disquiet among farmers in Madhya Pradesh comes on the heels of the headline grabbing incident in another BJP-ruled state – Uttar Pradesh, where many farmers received farm loan waiver of as low as one paise to a few hundred rupees. The state government had announced farm loan waiver of up to Rs one lakh for all farmers.
