Farmers in Raman’s constituency not paid crop compensation

There has been strong resentment among the people from several villages, spread over the Assembly constituency of Chief Minister Raman Singh and his Lok Sabha MP son Abhishek Singh in Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh, as huge numbers of actual beneficiaries of the national crop insurance scheme have not been paid compensation despite actual crop loss.

Chhattisgarh witnessed severe drought condition last year and for the khariff season 2015, a total of 6,33,245 were paid Rs 658.67 crore as compensation under National Crop Insurance Scheme against the loss of their agriculture produces, Agriculture Department officials told Millennium Post on Monday.

However, 14,857 farmers, spread over 18 districts have been left out from the compensation, which was creating a strong resentment among the farmers and they had even staged demonstration in many parts of the state against the empathy of the government.

The agitated farmers even met the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Rajnandgaon and strongly protested that they had not yet been paid any compensation for their crop loss due to the laxity of the Rajnandgaon district administration. On several occasions, the farmers said, they had informed the district administration about the matter, but nothing had happened so far.

Sensing the trouble, Abhishek Singh directed the local administration to immediately suspend the Tehsildars and other revenue officials like Patwaries, for the laxity in Bhanpuri and other villages, located close to the Rajnandgaon district headquarters, official sources said.

Besides high profile Rajnandgaon, farmers from districts like Kawardha, Durg, Bemetara, Balod, Mahasamund, Gariaband, Bilaspur, Janjgir-Champa, Kanker, Dantewada, Sarguja Korea and Balrampur among others have been deprived of compensation under the National Crop Insurance Scheme.

Agriculture Department officials said last week Departmental Minister Brij Mohan Agrawal met the Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh in Delhi and personally urged him to look into the matter, after which the Centre has mooted an idea to pay 50 per cent of the loss and asked the state government to bear the rest 50 per cent of the compensation for the farmers, they said.

Chhattisgarh government is preparing a list of farmers, whose claim settlement has not yet been made under the crop loss scheme, and soon they would be paid the amount, officials said.