The state government has come across major irregularities in insurance claims made by farmers in 2015. Most of these anomalies were reported from Marathwada, which was the worst affected region in the 26 districts hit by drought that year. The state government had disbursed a record Rs 4,205 crore as insurance. The state agriculture department is investigating all insurance claims made by farmers for the kharif and rabi seasons after it came to light that in Beed district alone, Rs 58 crore insurance money that was sanctioned for farmers was claimed illegally and banks had to reverse that amount to the state exchequer. According to a report on the incident, over 15,000 farmers from the district had fraudulently claimed insurance for a larger area of cultivation, or for premium paid for crops they hadn't even sowed. The episode was investigated by Beed collector Naval Kishore Ram when it emerged that the cultivated land shown as insured was much higher than the area available for cultivation in the district. According to the norms, a farmer has to get a crop certificate from the local revenue official (talathi) mentioning the area under cultivation and the crop he will sow before he can get insured for that crop. The premium has to be paid in any of the banks that are authorized by the national agriculture insurance company. In some cases, the farmer would get a crop-sowing certificate from the land revenue officer. A few days later, he would go back to the officer saying he had changed his mind and would be sowing another crop and hence would need another certificate. The farmer would take these two certificates (the earlier one wasn't cancelled) to two different banks and pay the insurance premium for both the crops, but sow only one crop. In these cases, insurance claims were admitted for both the crops. "The talathi has over 1,000 hectares of land under him, and he personally issues these certificates. It is impossible for him to keep track of how many certificates a farmer has taken or if he has inflated the area of his cultivated land on these certificates," said an official from the agriculture department. "There were cases where farmers didn't even cultivate anything and had yet paid up premium for cotton and had received insurance money. Some had registered inflated land areas so that more compensation could be claimed," said an official. Insurance premium that the farmer has to pay is very meagre and the amount depends on the crop and the area under cultivation. Currently, once an agricultural cycle is completed, crop production estimates are made by visiting random fields in one insurance circle, and then extending them to the entire circle. The indemnity levels for availing crop insurance in 2015 were kept at 60%. Principal secretary Bijay Kumar confirmed the incident and said a statewide investigation had been launched as he suspects many such cases have taken place. To avoid such frauds in future, the entire insurance enrolment system will be made online from the coming kharif season in June. "Currently, it is not known which crops are being cultivated on which plot. Once we take the system online, every time the same plot number is entered for issuing crop sowing certificates it will highlight the changes made. Even at the bank-end, once a premium amount has been paid it will figure in the online database," said Kumar. Source - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com