State agriculture insurer fails
View(s):The Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board (AAIB), the sole state sector insurer for agricultural risk management, has failed to achieve revenue targets due to management inefficiency and malpractices, a Finance Ministry fact finding report revealed.
The AAIB has not taken any action to encourage farmers into insurance schemes and it has failed to introduce new competitive insurance schemes by identifying their needs.
A new plan has been devised to streamline compensation payments through the introduction of insurance scheme in five districts.
Insurance claims of around Rs. 276,800 of 32 farmers in Kurunegala district, who cultivated subsidiary crop and damage, had been credited into a bank account of one farmer by AAAIB, the report noted. This money had not been settled even as at June 30, 2018.
The AAIB has targeted to earn a sum of Rs. 210.00 million from all insurance schemes in 2017/2018. However revenue of Rs.156.47 million had been collected during that period. Accordingly, the targeted revenue had not been achieved by 25 per cent of the required amount.