With just a week left for insuring the ‘samba’ paddy, a majority of Delta farmers feel that the crop insurance is all set to turn into a chimera for them.

Generally, around 10 lakh acres of agricultural lands would be brought under ‘samba’ and ‘thaladi’ paddy cultivation every season in the Delta districts of Thanjavur, Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur and Mayiladuthurai, whenever there was sufficient storage available at the Stanley Reservoir and the dam was opened on the scheduled date of June 12 in the past.

Though the manner in which the compensation of crop loss under the crop insurance scheme was dealt with during the last few years was not on the lines expected by the Delta farmers, they did not stay away from registering their paddy under the crop insurance scheme. In fact, they were dejected when crop insurance facility was denied during the last two ‘kuruvai’ seasons.

Farmers were running out of time to register their crop under the crop insurance scheme this season since most of them were yet to avail the crop loans, especially through the cooperative societies, said the general secretary, of Tamil Nadu Cauvery Farmers Protection Association, Sundara Vimalanathan.

Normally, the tripartite meeting to decide on the quantum of crop loan per acre would be convened well ahead of the commencement of ‘samba’ season. While convening of this crucial meeting had been delayed, the Registrar of Cooperatives, Shanmughasundaram had sent a communication to the societies in October this year stating that crop loans should be granted to the farmers having the agricultural lands situated in the respective domains of the societies only.

Stating that this circular had compounded the problems of tiny and marginal farmers depending solely on the societies as they were already in dark about the quantum of assistance they would get from the societies, he called upon the Tamil Nadu government to come to the rescue of hapless farmers by convening the tripartite meeting so that disbursement of crop loans with crop insurance cover through the societies could be expedited.

Meanwhile, the Thanjavur district administration has called upon the farmers taking up ‘samba’ or ‘thaladi’ crop cultivation to register their crop for insurance cover by remitting Rs.539 per acre as premium on or before November 15. So far, 14189 farmers have registered their paddy raised on 38628 acres in the district, according to an official release.

Source - https://www.thehindu.com