Plea to extend crop insurance to all farmers

Closing a petition filed by former MLA M Appavu, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana observed, “The issue of agriculture crop insurance is important, as agriculture in India is still dependent on the vagaries of nature. Food for teaming millions is a necessity and it would be difficult to countenance a position where the agriculturist finds himself in a position where he even seeks to abandon, this important aspect of use qua the land by the society, to meet the needs of the people. Thus, the security for the agriculturist in respect of the crops grown by them is certainly a matter of concern”.

Earlier, in its counter, the Union government stated that the experimental process was on and it may require some more time. The Union government also said, “Keeping in view the large number of fragmented holdings and lack of yield data/weather data of individual farmers and the lack of infrastructure and preparedness at State level, it may not be administratively possible at present, to implement crop insurance scheme at individual level on cost effective basis”.

The bench said, “We are sure that the Central government will look into all these aspects with the technical assistance of experts to endeavour for the individual crop process as may be feasible as early as possible”.