Police registers case against 10 personnel for duping farmers of nearly Rs 4 crore under Centre's scheme

Police have registered  a case against 10 personnel of a leading private insurance company empanelled for the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana in Maharashtra's Akola district for allegedly duping farmers to the tune of Rs 3.95 crore by submitting false information about their crop losses, an official said.

The complaint in this connection was lodged by District Agriculture Superintendent Dr Murlidhar Ingle against the staff of ICICI Lombard insurance company, based on which a first information report (FIR) was registered on March 21 at Khadan police station in Akola.

The FIR says that the company staffers prepared false panchnama reports (survey forms), forged signatures of agriculture department officials to under-report the crop losses incurred due to unseasonal rains and other natural reasons, and prima facie cheated farmers to the tune of Rs 3,95,09,177.

The complaint said that ICICI Lombard insurance company was appointed to implement the Pradhan Mantri Crop Insurance Scheme in Akola district for the kharif season 2022-23. Under this scheme, crop damage assessment is conducted in the presence of an agriculture department official, the affected farmer and a representative of the insurance company. The panchnama report is considered admissible after all the participants sign on it, it said.

In the past, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) had staged protests in this regard across the district. The party workers had allegedly also ransacked the office of ICICI Lombard company in Murtijapur and party MP Arvind Sawant had written a letter to the Union agriculture minister against the company's alleged malpractices.