PATIALA: The firms that earned a profit in several crores under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana had failed to clear the claims of over Rs 48.7 crore to

across the country who had insured their crops.

These companies, including 13 private and five public, had not cleared the estimated and approved claims amounting up to Rs 3000 crore but failed to compensate the farmers for their crop loss.

The information has been collected by a Ropar based RTI activist advocate Dinesh Chadha who revealed that the insurance firms under this scheme were meant to compensate the farmers for their crop losses but failed to clear in a period of last two years – 2016-17 and 2017-18.

On the basis of RTI information collected from the Union Ministry of agricultural and farmer welfare department, Chadha exposed that estimated and approved claims of around 48770515 farmers were not cleared in 2017-18 whereas a total of 57217159 farmers were not given clearance over the insurance claim in 2016-17.

The RTI was filed in October 2018 and reply was up till November 2018.

Chadha said that on the one hand companies impanelled have earned around 17,000 crore from Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, while on the other, these companies did not pay claims of about

,000 crore to farmers in two years.

He said that in the financial year 2016-17 there were estimated claims of Rs 16,448.55 crore of farmers out of which Rs 16,242.70 crore was approved, but farmers were paid only Rs 15,902.47 crore. The companies did not pay about Rs 600 crore out of the estimate claims to the farmers.

Similarly, In the financial year 2017-18, there were estimated claims of Rs 17,992.54 of crop damage, out of which claims of Rs 16,611.16 were approved but farmers were paid only Rs 15,710.25 crore up to November 2018. In this way in 2017-18 companies did not pay about Rs 2300 crore of farmers. In these 2 financial years companies did not pay around Rs 3,000 crore of crop damage compensation to farmers,” said Chadha.