Ahmedabad, 30 May 2013

Senior Congress leader and former Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil today called a press meet over crop insurance claims of Gujarat farmers. He said that it was a clear case of negligence of Gujarat government which was being turned as a case of injustice to Gujarat by the centre by Chief Minister and his colleagues.

Giving details of this, he said that government has no real figures of the cultivated land in the state. Earlier it was done by maintaining water register. Government sent figures which were not real. As a result the figures sent by Gujarat government to the Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited did not match with the figures of land insured by farmers. This negligence of the government has led to the situation where the total insured land area by farmers appears more than what the government records claim. Crop insurance claim for 11 different crops of Gujarat farmers is estimated to be around Rs 3107 crore. Of this maximum is of groundnut which is Rs 3048 crore.

Shaitisinh said, a serious blunder by Gujarat government has led to a piquant position for Gujarat farmers.Insurance company has to retain services of Agriculture Finance Corporation Limited because of the statistical blunder of Gujarat government which is leading to delay in settlement of crop insurance claims.Had Gujarat government not acted with negligence, Gujarat farmers would have got money by now. Money after the scarcity period cannot be used productively in the farms.

He said, according to authentic documents central government has paid Rs.700 crore in advance for crop insurance through AIC. On its own, centre even asked state government to ask for more money. The state government has committed a sin by not paying crop insurance to farmers. Still the centre government has asked Agriculture Insurance Company of India (AIC) to remove anomalies and immediately settle the claims of farmers.