Alarm bells as crop insurance claimed on fake farms, orchards in Maharashtra

A Right to Information (RTI) plea in November 2022 has blown the lid off a crop insurance fraud in districts across Maharashtra, where compensation was allegedly claimed for losses on imaginary vineyards, banana plantations and pomegranate and sweet lime orchards.

The alleged scam has prompted the Centre to order a physical verification or ‘ground-truthing’ of all crops registered under the Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) in the state, and action against farmers who have fraudulently insured their crops.

In November last year, the state agriculture department received an RTI application seeking details of the documents submitted for claiming insurance for alleged losses suffered on a sweet lime orchard in Balgaon village in Jat taluka of Sangli district. In its reply to the plea, the department shared with the RTI applicant details of the claimant, including the Aadhaar card, bank details and geotagged pictures of the orchard.

The RTI applicant, Shivanand Nagappa Nila, the legal owner of the orchard, then reached out to the commissionerate to point out that it had been defrauded by a bogus insurance claim. The applicant said that while he cultivated several seasonal crops on his land, sweet lime wasn’t among those. The alleged fraudster, Shavarsidhha Saibanna Dugdhi, had allegedly submitted a non-notarised lease deed to claim insurance, whereas the owner told the department that he had not leased out his land at all.