Rs 50,000 fine for denying Rythu Bima payment

HYDERABAD: The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Sangareddy, has directed the Life India Jeevan Bima to pay `5 lakh towards insurance with 2 per cent interest and `50,000 as compensation for declining the insured amount under the State government’s Farmers Group Life Insurance Scheme (Rythu Bima). The Commission also directed the Agriculture department officials to be cautious. 

According to the complaint filed by Mohd. Shaheen Begum, a resident of Daulatabad of Siddipet district, her husband late Mohd. Nasir Ahmed owned around 4 acres of land. In 2018, the State government introduced the Rythu Bima scheme for all land-owning farmers in the age group of 18 to 59 years.Though Nasir Ahmed was born in 1960 as per his educational certificate records, in his Aadhaar his date of birth was mentioned as July 1, 1959. 

However, while enrolling for the Rythu Bima scheme, Daulatabad Cluster Agriculture Extension Officer Vinod Kumar (AEO) mistakenly entered the date of birth as August 14, 1959, instead of July 1, 1959. As per the date of birth mentioned in the Aadhaar card of Nasir Ahmed, he was ineligible for Rythu Bima. In spite of that, the Agriculture department forwarded his name to the insurance scheme and the insurance firm accepted it by taking the premium. 

In its judgement, the Commission held that there is a provision to correct the wrongly mentioned date of birth in the Aadhaar online portal, and therefore it can not be a reason to decline the insurance claim.“These kinds of errors will derail the actual beneficiaries of the scheme thereby causing potential loss to the Government. Hence, we warn the officer concerned to be cautious henceforth in feeding data,” the Commission observed.