Satlana (Jodhpur, Rajasthan): Thousands of farmers in the Satlana gram panchayat of Rajasthan's Jodhpur, insured under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), have been denied insurance claims for two crop seasons - kharif 2016 and kharif 2017.

The claims have apparently been denied because the Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited (AIC) refunded their premiums to the Jodhpur Central Co-operative Committee Bank a year after they were paid, as the insurance details weren't provided in a 'soft copy'. The bank, however, has not credited the refund in farmers' accounts.

The matter was taken to the Rajasthan high court after farmers, with the support of their sarpanch, filed a public interest litigation to seek their insurance claims. When the insurance claims didn't reach us when other villages in our gram panchayat had received them, we approached the concerned co-operative society, which is a unit of the Jodhpur Central Co-operative Committee Bank, but nothing substantial happened,' Bhala Ram Patel, the sarpanch of Satlana, told The Wire.

On December 15, 2017, the co-operative society in Satlana wrote a letter to the Jodhpur Central Co-operative Committee Bank saying that three patwar mandals under its jurisdiction - Satlana, Karniyali and Bhacharna - where close to 70% yield loss was assessed by the state revenue department, hadn't received insurance claims for kharif 2016 despite a premium of Rs 4,32,793 being debited from the farmers' accounts in the co-operative society.

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The bank, on the next day (December 16, 2017), asked the AIC to 'investigate the facts and initiate disbursal of insurance claims'. However, it didn't receive a reply until the matter was taken to the high court.

Issues in handling PMFBY policies in kharif 2016

While it has been proven that the bank credited the premium debited from farmers to the insurance company, AIC submitted before the court that it had refunded the premium to the bank a year later as 'no insurance details' of the premium were provided.

AIC, in its reply to the high court, said, 'We had received a total premium of Rs 5,27,11,235.65 from Jodhpur Central Cooperative Bank for Kharif 2016. However, the booked premium was only Rs 5,10,48,379.14 since we had refunded Rs 16,62,856.57 back to the bank.'

As per a PMFBY notification dated July 23, 2016, farmers' insurance details must be provided both in hard and soft copies. AIC claimed that since a soft copy was compulsory, the premium could not be accepted.

As per the AIC's submission, even if insurance details were not in the requisite format, the company took more than a year to refund the premium. 'We didn't receive insurance details for that amount [Rs 16,62,856.57] from the Satlana Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS) as per the format prescribed in the PMFBY notification. Rs 16,60,196.71 of this amount were refunded on September 28, 2017 and Rs 2,659.8 on March 20, 2018,' AIC said in its reply to the court.

To explain the delay, the insurance company said it was waiting for proper details to come. 'We didn't want the famers to suffer just because the insurance details were not given in the prescribed format, so we waited for some time and that is why the refund process got delayed,' Pushkar Priyadarshi, regional manager of AIC, told The Wire.

The mess doesn't end here

The Jodhpur Central Co-operative Committee Bank, which received the refund from AIC, told the court that it couldn't have 'assumed' that the amount refunded was the farmers' premium.

When we received an amount of Rs 16,62,856.57 from AIC, we asked for clarification of the amount but it [AIC] didn't reply. There was no reason for us to assume that the amount was a refund of farmers' premium,' the bank said in its reply.

The bank further claimed that the premium, along with requisite particulars of farmers, was provided to the AIC on October 5, 2016, which it had received without any objection.

AIC started disbursing the insurance claims of Kharif 2016 on December 13, 2016. If there were any lapses in the particulars of the farmers, then that should have been intimated before the disbursal of the claims. We never received any communication from the insurance company in this regard,' the bank claimed.

As per farmer Satya Narayan's pass book, seen by The Wire, insurance premium worth Rs 1,207 was debited on June 3, 2016 and Rs 1,380 on September 12, 2017, but there was no entry for an insurance claim. 'Each season there is no delay in debiting our premium, but when it comes to paying claims, there is a long list of excuses and conditions. Even for kharif 2018, we are yet to receive the claim despite crop yield losses,' said Satya Narayan.

Issues in disbursal of claims from kharif 2017

For kharif 2017, AIC admitted that it had received insurance details of 1,151 farmers from Satlana through the state PMFBY portal in the desired format, but paid insurance claims to only 25 farmers. 'It is not necessary that all the farmers who are insured are entitled to receive the insurance claims. There are a lot of factors that need to be seen,' said Priyadarshi.

However, the remaining farmers claim that they were also insured for the same notified crop for which a few farmers had received claims. 'When the crop sown is same, then how is it possible that we are not entitled to insurance claim?' a farmer in Satlana asked The Wire.

The insurance company has rejected the crop loss assessment of these villages, stating, 'As per the provisions of the PMFBY, the village-wise Jinswar report or any other report prepared by government has no relevance.'

This is in contrast with the Rajasthan government's PMFBY notification, which states, 'If more than 25% of the total insured area in a patwar circle has suffered crop yield loss, then all the insured farmers producing the insured crop in that patwar circle, who would have informed to the implementing agency within the stipulated time period, would be entitled to insurance claim.'

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The farmers' counsel in the PIL believes that the insurance company is making absurd excuses for having denied insurance claims of eligible farmers. 'When the guidelines clearly mention that the damages in a patwar circle on a certain threshold make all the insured farmers in that circle eligible to seek claim, there is no point in discarding village-wise crop loss assessment reports of the village,' Moti Singh Rajpurohit, counsel for the petitioners, told The Wire.

There is also a discrepancy in the insurance company's and bank's versions on the number of Satlana farmers who benefited under the PMFBY in kharif 2017. The insurance company claimed that it had paid claims to 25 farmers, while the bank details submitted to the court brings down the number to just seven. 'In the season Kharif 2017, a total of 1,521 farmers in Satlana were insured under the PMFBY, however, insurance claim amounting to Rs 40,992.14 was paid only to 7 farmers,' the bank said in its reply to the high court.

Source : Mint