Tihidi: Scores of farmers from Kanpada panchayat under Tihidi block in Bhadrak district staged an agitation at Balasore-Bhadrak Central Cooperative Bank Friday as they have been denied crop insurance benefit due to a faulty crop loss assessment report.
Paddy crop in Kanpada panchayat was completely damaged due to cyclone and floods last year. Farmers were upset over the unavailability of crop insurance money despite repeated agitations.
Talking to agitating farmers, BCCB manager Mahendra Nayak said that he has apprised the higher-ups of the issue.
According to reports, 209 farmers had taken loans from the BCCB and raised paddy last year. They were in a fix about how to pay off the loans after their crop was damaged.
The agriculture and the revenue departments conducted a joint survey which put the crop damage at 76 per cent.
Of the 209 loanee farmers, 132 had received crop insurance. Of the remaining 77 farmers, the names of 13 were not in the list.
Surprisingly, 64 farmers of Shyamsundarpur panchayat were enlisted for crop insurance whereas the panchayat had recorded 34 per cent crop damage.
This has led to discontent among farmers. The deprived farmers had intimated the issue to the Chief Minister, the Agriculture Minister and the Collector.
They also took up the issue with the zonal manager of the insurance company.
Farmer leaders Bhagirathi Das, Niranjan Das, Chakradhar Das, Ganesh Das, Trilochan Das, Mahendra Das, Saba Das, and Bailochan Das demanded a proper survey of the crop damage and crop insurance.
But no step was taken to pay insurance money, lamented the farmers.