Agriculture Insurance Company of India Ltd (AICIL), promoted by the General Insurance Company (GIC), Nabard and other financial institutions, has chalked out plans to cover half of the 11 crore farmers in the country under crop insurance. |
At present, just about one tenth of the farmers in the country have their crops insured. |
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Suparas Bhandari, chairman-cum-managing director of Agriculture Insurance Company of India Ltd (AICIL) said in Ahmedabad on Monday that while 1.25 crore farmers have been covered under crop insurance so far, this year, 1.50 crore farmers are expected to be covered under crop insurance scheme. |
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"We expect at least 25 per cent of farmers to be covered under crop insurance by 2006 and 50 per cent of the 11 crore farmers by 2010," said Bhandari. |
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In the past financial year, AICIL received premium worth Rs 370 crore, while the disbursements made during the year to farmers whose crops got damaged amounted to Rs 1,900 crore. |
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"The disbursement is five times the premium because we collect lesser premium. The disbursements are made through the premium received, along with contributions from the Central and state governments," said Bhandari. |
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He added that all disbursements have been made so far, except those where the state governments have not given their share of money. "The Central government has been giving its share of the money regularly, but we have been facing problems in getting the share from the state governments. One can understand it, because state governments have financial problems too," said Bhandari. |
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P Nagarjun, regional in-charge of AICIL, said that in the past four years (which includes eight crop seasons, four rabi and four kharif) a premium worth Rs 324 crore has been collected from Gujarat. The disbursements were to the tune of Rs 1,652 crore has been made. |
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"As many as 33 lakh farmers in Gujarat have benefited from the disbursements," Nagarjun cleared. |
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Bhandari, however, added that there is a greater need to verify whether crop damage figures provided by farmers across the country are accurate or not. It also necessary to check whether they have provided the right figures regarding area under which sowing has taken place. |
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"At present, we work with the state government agencies. But we are trying to work out a better method to ascertain crop damages," the AICIL chairman said. |
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AICIL was formed in April 2003 with an aim to provide a more efficient crop damage reimbursement mechanism to farmers. Until then, crop insurance was a part of General Insurance Company. |
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Barring Punjab, all other states have joined the country-wide comprehensive crop insurance scheme, which has now been replaced by the national agriculture insurance scheme (NAIS). |
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Under NAIS, Gujarat remains in the first position. AICIL covers 13 crops in the kharif season and seven crops in the rabi season, including high risk crops like cotton. Bhandari said that apart from droughts or floods, crops are insured against a variety of other natural calamities and even pest or disease attacks. |
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