COIMBATORE: Thursday, August 16, is the last day for
farmers of agricultural crops to insure their kharif crops. While the agriculture department says shortage of staff at cooperative societies is not allowing many farmers to submit their applications, farmers associations say they do not want insurance but cooperative societies are forcing them to apply and pay premiums.
It seems to be a story of two tales, as the agriculture department is offering to provide staff support at a few of the 200-odd primary agriculture co-operative societies ensure to that every farmer who wants to insure crops does so.
“Farmers can apply for insurance directly through commercial banks or through cooperative societies, but non-loan farmers seem to prefer applying for it from societies,” said a senior agriculture officer.
“Societies and banks prefer offering insurance to farmers who have also applied for loans because the insurance premium is directly deducted from the
loan amount before it is disbursed,” he said.
Agriculture department is offering to provide extra staff to help farmers fill applications, check and submit documents on Thursday. “Most societies suffer from staff shortage and with Wednesday being a holiday, they will face a rush on Thursday,” he added.
However, farmers have a different story to tell. They say none of them wants insurance, but they are being forced to apply for it, especially those taking loans.
“Application for an insurance policy has to be optional,” said district secretary of the
Tamil Nadu Farmers Association (non-political) P Kandasamy.
“Instead co-operative societies and agriculture officers are harassing and forcing farmers to apply for insurance, to either reach targets or make money for insurance companies. Farmers who have taken loans are most affected because their premium is deducted even before they get the money,” he said.
Farmers feel that the premium of 5% is too high and insurance payouts hardly come to Coimbatore. “Last year during severe drought, Coimbatore hardly got Rs 2 crore, compared to Tirupur which got Rs 63 crore and Thanjavur which got hundreds of crores,” said Karthik Krishnakumar, senior member of the association.
“They do not notify prevalently grown crops in the district and they offer a payout only if the entire town panchayat saw crop loss or damage, which does not always happen,” he added.
