Crop insurance has been around for many a day, but many farmers in Trichy are still unaware of it. This lack of awareness has taken away their chances of receiving monetary aid and relief, after losing their crops to drought.
Farmers in Tiruvarur on the other hand, seem to have known about and insured their crops, allowing them to avail insurance benefits. Their claims account for 489 crores of the total 928.12 crores that insurance companies have so far paid to the drought-hit farmers.
Trichy, meanwhile, only received 20 crores worth of claims. Farmers of the Ramanathapuram district claimed 355 crores of the remaining 419 crores. The Trichy farmers’ lack of knowledge about the importance of paying the premium seems to have been the reason for their being unable to avail the benefit.
Puliyur A Nagarajan, state organiser of the farmers’ wing of the Tamil Mahila Congress says, “Despite the farmers facing severe drought for the last five years, no one came forward to be covered under crop insurance scheme. In this distress period, had they remitted a meagre amount of 386 as crop insurance premium, they could have claimed at least 6000.”
He adds that the farmers’ wing of the Tamil Mahila congress were starting a campaign to educate the farmers about crop insurance, and as part of it, would go and meet every farmer across the district, motivating them to pay insurance premium.
“We hope that farmers can take up cultivation on 1.50 lakh acres in Trichy district. Of them, we have planned to bring at least one lakh acres under crop insurance cover.” he said. They have also made an appeal to and submitted a memorandum to the state government and district administration, to accelerate the process of disbursal of claims.
Source: Times of India
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