The state government during the question hour, on Monday, announced that it is mulling to set up a corpus fund to compensate farmers facing losses due to crop failure.
The farmers insurance scheme and the alleged profit being made by private companies were raised in this hour. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani made the announcement in wake of increasing discontent among farmers over the compensation issue.
"We have proposed the Centre to allow us to set up a corpus fund to compensate farmers. A discussion about this is going on at the Centre since the current insurance scheme is a pan-India scheme," the CM said on a question raised by Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar.
Rupani clarified that Rs. 12,000 crore insurance will be provided against a premium of Rs 5,000 crore. Congress MLAs said that the farmers in the same region received different compensations. Many farmers in drought affected did not receive 100% compensation that they are entitled.
The Centre's norm states that a taluka be declared drought affected if it received 5 inches or rain or less. The state ensured that those receiving up to 14 inches or less were considered scarcity hit regions.
Congress's Paresh Dhanani said the problem started after the private players entered this sector."On an average, crop insurance firms collect Rs. 3,200 crore every year. Farmers are not getting any benefit despite paying a premium. I urge the government to remove private firms from this scheme," said Dhanani.
Nitin Patel accused the Congress of misleading the farmers and said they lacked the understanding of how insurance works. "Just because you paid a premium doesn't mean the entire insured amount will be refunded. The compensation is based on actual loss and not the premium paid," Patel said.
