Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government on Thursday decided to double the compensation amount covered under the Farmers Accident Insurance Scheme from the existing Rs 1 lakh to 2 lakh in case of accidental deaths and Rs 1 lakh, against Rs 50,000 for grievous injuries. The announcement comes after constant criticism from the opposition over the issue of farm loan waivers.
The Farmers Accident Insurance Scheme, which was originally launched in 1996, has also been modified to include the immediate family members of farmers. Earlier, only the farmer or the members whose names were there in land records were eligible for the scheme. Now, instead of 73.25 crore beneficiaries, as many as 2.49 crore people will be eligible for the benefits.
While addressing the media on Thursday, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said, “Farmers and their families constitute about 2.49 crore of the total 6.25 crore population of Gujarat. The government has decided to double the amount of compensation for both accidental deaths as well as permanent disability.”
The primary prerequisite for being eligible for compensation under the scheme is that the beneficiary ought to be a farmer and that he or she should have land records to prove that their occupation is farming. In case of accidental death of a farmer, a post mortem report is mandatory.
Apart from cases of accidental deaths and permanent disability caused while working on the field, electrocution, animal bites, accidents involving machines, falling in wells or in road accidents while travelling to market yards are also covered under the group insurance scheme.
“On an average, around 1,500 farmers die every year because of any of the causes covered under the insurance scheme, but with the number of beneficiaries increasing almost four times now, we expect the number of cases to increase as well. Similarly, the government will have to pay up a higher premium to the insurance companies every year,” Patel said.
Until now, the government was paying an annual premium of nearly Rs 35 crore for the scheme and this is likely to shoot up to around Rs 80 crore.
The Congress had earlier organised huge farmers’ protests over the issue of farm loan waiver — a promise that the ruling BJP had made in its 2017 election campaign. It has also claimed that the government has remained non-committal on the issue of waiving farm loans.
On the contrary, the BJP has maintained that the plight of farmers under the earlier Congress regimes was worse.
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