Chandigarh, Jan 24 (IANS): Veteran Congress leader Bhupinder Hooda on Wednesday said the BJP-JJP government in Haryana is cheating farmers in the name of Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) and crop insurance scheme.
He said that the scam worth hundreds of crores is an eye-opener.
Hooda, the state's Leader of Opposition and former Chief Minister, said hundreds of crores were looted from farmers first in the name of paddy and market purchase, then in the name of crop insurance and compensation.
"Now another scam of the government has come to light. Fake FPOs were created in the name of fake farmers. The money which should have been used for the uplift of farmers went straight into the pockets of scamsters.
"Farmers neither received equity grant nor subsidy. The scam took place on such a large scale in the entire state that the matter reached the Central government. But the BJP-JJP government left no stone unturned to mislead the Central government. In the name of CID investigation, the entire scam was white-washed and the culprits were saved," he alleged.
The Congress leader said the coalition government had earlier been cheating farmers in the name of crop insurance scheme every season.
"The coffers of private insurance companies are being filled by looting farmers through PM Crop Insurance Scheme.
"The Centre itself had informed the Parliament in July that in the past seven years, private insurance companies collected insurance premium of Rs 1,97,657 crore across the country. In return, the companies gave compensation of only Rs 1,40,036 crore. This means they made a huge profit of Rs 57,000 crore. In Haryana, AIC company took a premium of Rs 703.84 crore in 2022-23, but only gave a compensation of Rs 7.46 crore. That means 99 per cent of the amount went into the company's coffers," he said.
The Leader of Opposition said crops of about 3 lakh farmers in seven districts of the state were not insured this time.
"The deadline for taking insurance has also passed on December 31. The farmers have been left to rely on god. Farmers of Ambala, Karnal, Sonipat, Hisar, Jind, Mahendragarh and Gurugram districts of Cluster-II have been deprived of insurance," he said.
"In such a situation, if there is any loss to the crops of mustard, wheat, barley and sunflower, there will be no one to compensate for it. Last time, even for the kharif crop, there was no insurance company for this cluster. Whereas premium amount was deducted from the accounts of about 2 lakh farmers up to July 2023," he said.
Hooda said farmers have also complained to him about discrimination in compensation allocation.
"Farmers say the government provides compensation to its favourite farmers, while most of the farmers remain dependent on the agencies and the government. This entire matter should also be investigated at a high level. Also, the government should compensate the farmers of Cluster-II at its own level and immediately pay all compensation outstanding till now," he added.