Already in distress over unsettled insurance claims of 2015-16, farmers recently got another shock from the Meteorological Department. It asked farmers to cough up Rs 1,500 per day as charge for providing them the weather data of the previous year. Apple farmers allege that private and state-run insurance companies are not paying them even half of the amount they paid as premium under the Weather-Based Crop Insurance (WBCI) for 2015-16. Farmers recently approached the India Meteorological Department’s Meteorological Centre in Shimla, seeking weather data of the previous year to contest the insured amount being offered to them. The centre agreed to provide the data, but, shockingly, at a charge of Rs 1500 per day, rued the farmers. Since WBIS is jointly run by the state and the Centre, farmers have demanded an internal mechanism to share and cross-check data collected from automated weather stations of the insurance companies with that of the met department. “We wanted to cite the IMD data to insurance companies to contest their claims,” a farmer said. The farmers paid their WBCI premium for 2016-17 in December. “However, it is shocking that the insurance claims for 2015-16 haven’t been settled yet. We are not getting even half of the cost of the premium that we paid to the companies in 2015-16,” said Lakshman Thakur, chairman, Ecohort society of farmers, Nandpur. Farmers claim weather from December, 2015, to July, 2016, was one of the driest and it also was one of the leanest apple crop years due to the vagaries of weather. Over 1.28 lakh farmers sought insurance cover under WBCI in 2015-16. The farmers said the mandatory chilling hours were not complete, rains and snowfall were deficient and wind and hailstorms caused a large-scale damage to apple trees in Shimla, Kullu, Mandi and Kinnaur apple belts. The farmers resented that the state government had not covered the “natural hazard of fire under the WBCI scheme despite the fact that wildfires ignited in the forest department-run chil plantations devastated many apple orchards at Chopal and Rohtan in Jubbal-Kotkhai and other areas last year. Horticulture Director HS Baveja couldn’t be reached despite repeated calls, but insiders said the department was in the process of paying the insurance claims to farmers. As far as the amount of claims was concerned, they get weather data from the automated weather stations installed by the insurance companies, they revealed. Source - http://www.tribuneindia.com