Ping-pong between bank and insurer leaves chickoo farmers out cold

From left Affected farmers like Vasudev Patil Niraj Patil standing in on behalf of his mother Umesh Raut Shirin Irani and Shatrughna RautIt could well be a comedy of errors with its characters of bungling fools were it not for the end result loss of around Rs 6 lakhs for eight chickoo farmers in Bordi They were hit badly mdash first by the humid climate and then the sheer incompetence with which their insurance claim was handled by the management of both the Bank of Baroda and Reliance Insurance CooperationShahrukh Irani son of ShirinThe issue at handUnder the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana any crop damage due to climatic conditions is insured but this year confusion over the address of the new insurance partner Reliance led to no payout for the suffering Bordi farmers ldquoAfter our crops got damaged during the monsoon we immediately filled in the required papers and submitted it at the Bank Of Barodarsquos Bordi branch On July 13 the bank sent the documents and the cheque to Reliance Insurance mdash but on a wrong address mdash setting off the entire debaclerdquo said Shahrukh Irani whose mother had filed a Rs 2 lakh claim for the damage of four hectare chickoo at a yearly premium of Rs 2500hecatreHowever even after the documents were sent back to the bank for a lack of address on August 1 the bank failed to rectify the problem or even notify the farmers about the situation ldquoIt was only on November 13 that we found out about this whole confusion Forget the insurance money we were not even informed about anything So now what happens to our lost crop What about the damagerdquo added ShahrukhBut herersquos what is clear The deadline is past and the insurance firm is refusing to pay the farmers who are caught in this cross fire between the bank and the insurerBlame game beginsBordirsquos Bank Of Barodarsquos branch manager Satendra Kumar justified the goofup by using the crutch of demonetisation and blaming Reliance for not updating its address after shifting ldquoThere are several reasons like transfer of managers and the rush during demonetisation Also we receive so many letters from so many companies that it gets difficult to handlerdquo he said adding ldquoOur branch is on the Gujarat border and 10 kilometres from the main city In the interiors we are uninformed about all these things like address changerdquoReliance however says that it was the bankrsquos fault as it was misinformed about the address Pramod Patil Reliancersquos state coordinator of the scheme said ldquoWhat the bank did was Google the office address and post the documents Just like that They didnrsquot inform us or have any kind of conversation This is not how things work The Government Regulations document on the scheme clearly mentions the Goregaon office then why did they send it to the Wadala office The date has now passed and because of all this we cannot do anything The bank is to be blamed for the chaosrdquoWhat of the farmersldquoItrsquos not just us Along with the farmers are the labourers the families that depend on the harvest for their personal investments and several other lives that are going to be affected because of the mismanagement by these two parties While they are busy playing the blame game itrsquos us the farmers who are paying the pricerdquo said Niraj Patil another farmerVasudev Patil 78 who owns two hectare land and paid a premium of Rs 5000hectare said ldquoThey should mention why it was rejected and somebody should be held accountablerdquo Now the farmers plan to write to the Prime Ministerrsquos Office about their current predicament and failure of the schemeHow the crop was damagedThe chickoo harvests mainly between December and May In the monsoons however when the chickoo is peasized it is at maximum risk as the humidity creates fungus inside the fruit According to the scheme if the humidity is or more than 90 RH Relative Humidity and remains so for more than 10 days mdash which in the case of the Bordi farmers continued for 22 days and destroyed 90 per cent of the crop mdash they are eligible for an insurance claim