When Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa announced on Saturday that the old National Agriculture Insurance scheme (NAIS) will be valid for Samba, she took a major thorn out of the delta farmers’ flesh.

For, the Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (MNAIS) introduced by the erstwhile UPA government a few years ago was seen as hostile by the farmers because of its high premium and low cover. In fact, though the government specified an agriculture loan disbursal target of `1,826 crore for 2014-2015 Samba crop, only a small section had availed of it so far since they were wary of the MNAIS. Now, the Chief Minister’s announcement has lifted that burden.

Farmers comfortable with NAIS because of its low premium claim that the MNAIS, instead of providing security, acted as a burden. They said they were uncertain on taking the crop loan since they would be forced to pay about 50 per cent of the loan amount as premium under MNAIS.

Speaking to Express, Cauvery Dhanapalan, general secretary of the Cauvery Farmers Welfare Association said, “Under MNAIS, the maximum cover per acre is `6,000. In other words, after I spend about `20,000 for paddy cultivation per acre, I will get just `6,000 in case of crop failure. So, insurance companies will reap the benefits while farmers will bear the burden.”

Under the NAIS scheme, for receiving claims of `6,000 per acre, small and medium scale farmers had to pay two per cent of their claim amount as premium. That worked out to `120 per acre. Large scale farmers paid 2.5 per cent premium, which amounted to about `150 for `6,000 insurance cover. But under the MNAIS, farmers say that they had to pay `1,725 (28.74 per cent of the cover amount) as premium for insurance of `6,000 per acre. “If a farmer avails `1 lakh as agriculture loan, he would have to shell out as much as `52,000 as premium under MNAIS. Worried over the hefty premium, farmers were unwilling to avail of bank loans for Samba,” Dhanapalan claims. District Collector T Munusamy concurs.

Happily, all that has now changed since the old scheme is back in force.

Source - http://www.newindianexpress.com/