Gujarat MLA moves HC seeking payment of crop insurance

Seeking crop insurance pay-out for farmers of his constituency, Kandhal Jadeja, MLA from Kutiyana in Porbandar district, has moved the Gujarat High Court.
In response to his public interest litigation, the division bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala today issued notices to the Centre and Gujarat government and posted the further hearing to June 19.
Jadeja, an NCP leader, alleges that the authorities failed to pay the insurance amount to the drought-affected farmers of Kutiyana despite the crop failure in the area last season.
Only 4.88 per cent claims for groundnut crop and 7.82 per cent claims for cotton crop were settled, it says.

"Other tehsils of Porbandar witnessed more rainfall, but the authorities paid the farmers there more money than they paid the farmers of Kutiyana tehsils," the PIL says.
"Direct the authorities to place on record the details of crop insurance which was paid to the farmers and also the method of the calculation of insurance," the petitioner said.
After hearing the plea, HC also issued notices to the Director of Krushi Bhavan in Gandhinagar, the General Manager and Regional Manager of Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited and General Managers of State Bank of India and Dena Bank.