MUMBAI: As many as 10,322 farmers with crop insurance claims worth Rs 13 crore due from the United India Insurance Company Ltd (UIIC) in two districts have not got a payout for last year so far owing to problems with Aadhaar linkage to their bank accounts. Of these, 9,960 farmers are from Beed district and 362 farmers from Ahmednagar, both of which have been badly affected by this year’s drought.The details of claims rejected under the ‘Aadhaar-based payment system’ are on the insurance company’s website, urging farmers to provide the required documents to enable settlement. The farmers had either applied online or through the common service centre for the PM’s Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) for the 2017 kharif season. The payments were to be made by the insurance firm directly into farmer bank accounts through direct benefit transfer (DBT).“Initially, rejected claims amounted to Rs 18 crore in these two districts but we have since paid Rs 5 crore. Around Rs 13 crore is pending. Payments for 30-40 farmers are being cleared daily,” said a spokesperson for UIIC.Farmers have to enrol for the crop insurance scheme in order to avail of a crop loan. The provision of Aadhaar details is mandatory for the scheme. In case a farmer does not have an Aadhaar card, then the application number is sufficient. In September, the Supreme Court had upheld the use of Aadhaar for government welfare schemes. However, it also said that no one could be denied welfare benefits if Aadhaar authentication failed.The reasons for the rejection of the claims included “invalid Aadhaar” and problems with “Aadhaar mapping” and linking to bank accounts. The claim amounts range from sums as paltry as Rs 502 due to a gram farmer from Ahmednagar’s Jamkhed to Rs 78,580 due to a soyabean farmer from Beed’s Georai taluka.On its website the company has put up a notice for “Aadhaar-based rejected payment” for Beed district. It says that the company had disbursed the claims to the bank accounts of eligible farmers who had applied online or through the common service portal.However, the amounts were returned owing to “shortcomings like the closure of bank accounts, the lack of linking Aadhaar linking to bank accounts and other technical reasons”, the insurance firm’s notice says. It has urged farmers to provide bank details, a copy of their Aadhaar card and proof of payment of enrolment for the crop insurance scheme.“In many cases, the farmers have an Aadhaar number but it has not been linked to the bank. In some cases, the bank account which has an Aadhaar link has not been operational for over a year,” said a UIIC spokesperson. Significantly, he said that they faced no problem in using the payment method of disbursing money to banks to pass onto individual accounts. The problem only arose when the insurance firm transferred money to individual accounts through DBT using the Aadhaar linked gateway.Law student Shardul Deshpande, who had filed an RTI on the issue, said, “Although the PMFBY is a beneficial scheme for farmers, the state administration and insurance company have failed to maintain the workability of the scheme.”Farm activist Vijay Jawandhia said, “The banks need to be held accountable for the lack of linkage if the farmers already have an Aadhaar number.” Sources say the bulk of Aadhaar linkage problems in Beed were connected to cooperative banks.The PMFBY in Maharashtra for the 2017 kharif season saw a delayed roll-out. owever, by October 19, 99% of the eligible claims had been paid, the state’s data shows. Of the eligible claims worth Rs 2,544 crore, insurance firms had paid Rs 2,519 crore by that date.