Paddy growers who are busy harvesting their crop fear that they may not be able to make claims for compensation from crop insurance company under Pradhanmantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) as the district administration is yet to compile this year's figures of average paddy production per hectare. The task is not expected to be completed till the end of the current kharf season.
According to officials at the district statistics department, "crop cutting" is a technical system under which average of agricultural produce in a district in hectare as a unit is assessed. Under this process, the crop is harvested at four different places in randomly selected village panchayats in a triangular area of 43.30 square metres and the average level of agricultural production of each major crop in the district is assessed on the basis of the harvested produce.
An official of this department said for assessing present paddy crop, as many as 900 villages have been randomly selected in the district for crop cutting this year of which the process of assessment has been completed only in three villages — Mangatpur in Marauri block, Aimi in Lalaurikhera block and Udaikaranpur in Puranpur block. The database of all the districts is compiled at the state capital headquarters and sent to the central government.
An official, Anupam Chandra, said key role in crop cutting process was vested with lekhpals but the several posts in the district are yet to be filled up. Additional district magistrate AK Saini said the district had 216 lekhpals against 396 approved posts.
According to deputy director of agriculture AK Singh, the farmers can claim reparation from the crop insurance company under PMFBY in case their average produce declines in comparison to the average production level of the district technically assessed on the basis of crop cutting method.
But harvesting of paddy in the entire district, according to farmers, is expected to end within the next 15 or 20 days and that is why paddy growers would have no chance to file their claims for compensation to the insurance company on the basis of the crop cutting method.
Yogesh Singh and Brajendra Singh from Mathotanda told TOI that they have finished harvesting in their eight and 10 acre farmlands, respectively. Another farmer, Indrajeet Singh of village Gairatpur Japti, said he had six acres of paddy of which he had harvested five acres while Reet Ram Mishra of village Sapha had also concluded harvesting his 9 acres. These farmers belonged to Puranpur block, the biggest in the entire country.
Source - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
