Crop insurance settlement, Samman Nidhi not paid, complain Rajkot farmers

Farmers in Rajkot district complained that many of the farmers are still not paid crop insurance for their cotton crop in kharif season. Moreover, most of the farmers are still awaiting the payment under PM Samman scheme. Over 500 farmers, on Monday, gathered at Jetpur in Rajkot to press for their demands.

Chetan Gadhiya, president, Khedut Samaj Gujarat for Rajkot district said that inspite of repeated applications, majority of the farmers in the district have still not got their crop insurance settlement. "They had sown cotton during kharif season (Monsoon). Inspite of crop loss, they are still awaiting settlement of their insurance claims," said Gadhiya.

He also informed that only about 30 per cent farmers in the district have received payments under PM Samman Scheme. The scheme was announced during interim budget, under which each farmer will get Rs 6,000 per annum to meet their initial input costs. The amount is supposed to be deposited in the bank accounts of the farmers in three installments of Rs 2,000 each. "However, about 70 per cent of the farmers have still not received the payments," he said.

However, a senior official in agriculture said that the delay in crop insurance is because some of cases were under process, while in case of PM Samman scheme, money has been transferred to the bank accounts of most of the farmers in the state. "Close to 28.32 lakh farmers have received the first installment, while till about a week ago 26.53 lakh farmers have received the second installment. So it is strange that farmers are complaining about it," said the official.

Reeling under drought condition for three years, farmers now also want permanent irrigation facilities in form of canal network so that they would have to rely less on rains. Jayesh Patel, president, KSG said that if the pending cases are not resolved at the earliest, farmers will have no option but to carry out massive protests.