Mahendragarh: Deadline over, insurance firm fails to release relief to farmers

Ravinder Saini

Mahendragarh, July 3

A private insurance company has allegedly failed to disburse compensation of over Rs 4 crore among farmers for their crop losses that occurred due to the incessant rain in September last year, while the deadline set by Deputy Commissioner (DC) Monika Gupta to release the relief ended on Monday.

Taking a serious view of it, the DC has written to the state headquarters to blacklist the company for the bidding process so that it did not get the contract of crop insurance for the financial year 2023-24.

Money to be paid in a week

The entire compensation will be disbursed within a week and Rs 3.74 crore had so far been released to the farmers Rahul, district coordinator of insurance firm

“Bajra and cotton crops had suffered losses due to the rain that lashed the district in September 2022. Scores of villages, under Narnaul, Mahendragarh, Satnali and Kanina blocks of the district, were badly affected by the natural calamity. A total 16,917 farmers applied to get the crop loss compensation under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojana,” said sources.

The sources maintained at the insurance company, along with local officials of the Agriculture Department, conducted the survey at that time to assess the losses and also completed other formalities, but the compensation was not released to the farmers even after several months, even though the local office of the Agriculture Department also sent many reminders to the company in this regard.

“The DC held a meeting over the issue on June 28 and told the company officials to disburse entire compensation by July 3, but the latter released merely Rs 1.02 crore compensation to 1,078 farmers,” said an official of Agriculture Department.

Meanwhile, the DC said the contract of Reliance General Insurance Company for crop insurance had ended on March 31 and the bidding to release the tender for the financial year 2023-24 was scheduled this week.

“Since the company has failed to disburse the compensation among all 16,917 farmers despite getting many opportunities, I have written to the headquarters to blacklist it for the coming bidding process. When the state government can release the compensation to all uninsured farmers for the same crop losses on the basis of special girdawari, why not the company has so far disbursed the relief to insured farmers? It’s a gross negligence on part of the company and getting the compensation is a legal right of the farmers,” said the DC.