The Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board has paid drought compensation in full to 1,490 farmers, covering 1,115 acres of damaged crops, NewsFirst reported.
Rs. 57 million has been disbursed to date. The board said a further Rs. 1,800 million is scheduled to be paid this year, and that assessment of crop damage is continuing.
These are the first payout figures released since the scheme was announced. Until now the published numbers had all been allocations and damage estimates.
Measured against the applications
The board said 6,062 farmers have submitted claims, covering about 7,957 acres of cultivated land.
Set against that, the payments so far reach roughly one in four applicants and about 14 percent of the affected acreage. The average payment works out at a little under Rs. 38,300 per farmer.
Measured against the allocation
In August the government allocated Rs. 3 billion for agricultural insurance compensation under the El Niño-induced drought, at a rate of Rs. 100,000 per hectare capped at five acres per farmer.
Rs. 57 million is about 1.9 percent of that allocation.
The Rs. 1,800 million the board now says is scheduled for this year also sits well below the Rs. 3 billion allocated — a gap of some Rs. 1.14 billion. Neither the board nor the report explains whether the remainder is being held back for later claims, reallocated, or simply not expected to be drawn down. This comparison is LankaNewz’s own, drawn from the published figures.
Context
The dry spell has been tracked through the Yala season across Monaragala, Polonnaruwa, Ampara and Anuradhapura among other districts. By the start of September the Disaster Management Centre counted 88,068 people affected and around 8,000 acres of ruined crops — a damage estimate close to the 7,957 acres now reflected in the insurance board’s own claim figures.
Covered crops under the scheme include paddy, maize, big onion, potato, soybean and chilli.
Not reported
The report does not break the 1,490 paid farmers down by district, say how long claims are taking to process, or give a target date for clearing the remaining applications. It also does not say whether any claims have been rejected.
