Opposition Congress and BJP members on Saturday came down heavily on the State Government for the inordinate delay in payout of insurance money to farmers for crops damaged in drought in 2015 in as many as 27 districts of the State.
Participating in an Adjournment Motion brought by Opposition Chief Whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati (Congress), opposition members alleged that the Government has failed to provide insurance money even after a year since they lost their crops. While some farmers were forced to commit suicide, the Government’s apathy in providing insurance money has added to their woes.
“The Government must announce a date today when the farmers will get insurance money under the Rashtriya Krushi Vikash Yojana. Besides, the Government must make it clear when the sharecroppers will be included under the crop insurance programme,” demanded Congress member Naba Das.
Among others, Congress mdembers Bahinipati, Dr Prafulla Majhi and Subal Sahu and BJP members Rabinarayan Nayak slammed the Government for delaying submission of crop damage reports to the concerned insurance company and termed the Naveen Patnaik Government as anti-farmer.
In his reply, Cooperation Minister Dr Damodar Rout said, “After data on crop damages were collected from the Economic and Statistics Directorate, the Agriculture and Food Production Directorate and the Horticulture Directorate, the Cooperation Department submitted a report to the insurance company, AIC of India ltd, on August 10, 2016. Then, the company estimated the compensation and sent the report on September 3. We expect that farmers would get their insurance money in coming two to three weeks.”
The excess amount over insured sum is paid to farmers by both the Centre and State Government at a 50:50 ratio, he said.
He too stated that the State Government has made a. budgetary allocation of Rs800 crore to pay excess amount of loss over insured amount to farmers. “The State Government is awaiting approval from the Union Government to pay crop insurance to farmers,” the Minister said.
Dissatisfied over the Minister’s reply, Congress and BJP members staged walkouts from the House.