TAD News Desk, New Delhi: Farmers of Rajasthan’s Jodhpur received their long due of insurance claims from Kharif season 2016, which was arbitrarily denied by the Public Sector Insurance Company, and a state-run co-operative bank. The three year long legal battle ended in Farmers winning the case to receive the insurance claims under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMBFY).
The denial of insurance issue is from Satlana gram panchayat in Jodhpur, where due to lack of insurance details in soft copy, Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited (AIC), a public sector insurance company had refunded the farmer’s premiums of one year into Jodhpur’s Central Co-operative Committee Bank, and the bank didn’t bother to repay the refunded money to farmer’s accounts.
Sarpanch Bhala Ram Patel played an instrumental role in supporting these farmers to file a PIL in Rajasthan High Court’s Jodhpur bench in 2018. Justice Sangeet Lodha and Justice Rameshwar Vyas, in an order issued on September 16, 2020, stated that the due payment of farmers have been made on August 20, 2020.
While speaking to The wire, Sarpanch Bhala Ram Patel said, “It’s a big moment for all the farmers in Satlana. Receiving insurance claims under PMFBY has become a challenge for farmers across India. The insurance companies and banks always find ways to escape from paying us. Imagine, if we wouldn’t have stood up for our rights, the company wouldn’t have cared to pay Rs 81 lakh.”
State revenue department had assessed around 70 percent of loss yielded during Kharif 2016 season, in three Patwar mandals of – Satlana, Karniyali and, Bhacharna – and, they were not paid their insurance claims.
AIC in its defence before the High court bench stated that, as the rules are specified, farmers must have provided their information in hard copy as well as a soft copy, which they failed to provide and thus, AIC did not accept their policies and returned their premiums to the Bank.
AIC accepted before the bench, that it had booked only a limited amount of insurance policies. In a reply to the Court, it stated, “We had received a total premium of Rs 5,27,11,235.65 from Jodhpur Central Cooperative Bank for Kharif 2016. However, the booked premium was only Rs 5,10,48,379.14 since we had refunded Rs 16,62,856.57 back to the bank.”
Notification issued by PMFBY on July 23, 2016, clearly stated that the insurance information must be provided in Hard copy as well as Soft copy, thus AIC explained they did not accept the policies because the farmers failed to provide them with the soft copy of insurance details.
Regardless of the lack of farmer’s details in the prescribed format, the refund of the premium was initiated after one year. The AIC said in a further reply to the court, “We didn’t receive insurance details for that amount [Rs 16,62,856.57] from the Satlana Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS) as per the format prescribed in the PMFBY notification. Rs 16,60,196.71 of this amount were refunded on September 28, 2017 and Rs 2,659.8 on March 20, 2018.”
AIC defended the delay by saying that it was waiting for further information to come, while it didn’t contact the bank even once, meanwhile.
Pushkar Priyadarshi, Regional Manager of AIC had told earlier, “We didn’t want the famers to suffer just because the insurance details were not given in the prescribed format, so we waited for some time and that is why the refund process got delayed.”
Bank to defend their stance on not returning of the refunded amount to farmer’s accounts, stated that there was no way that the bank could know it was the farmer’s premium amount that was refunded.
The bank said in its reply, “When we received an amount of Rs 16,62,856.57 from AIC, we asked for clarification of the amount but it [AIC] didn’t reply. There was no reason for us to assume that the amount was a refund of farmers’ premium.” It further stated that AIC did not raise any objections to the premium paid on October 5, 2016.
This PIL had made the denial of insurance claims in Kharif season 2017, questionable. The court said that it will further hear that issue.
Source – Agriculture Times
