Gaurav Noronha
A huge scandal: P Sainath on a bumper crop in insurance for corporations https://t.co/BAcRXIKrAy via @YouTube
— ParanjoyGuhaThakurta (@paranjoygt) November 12, 2018
More recently, former Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has attacked the Modi government’s crop insurance scheme in a series of tweets claiming that it was designed to profit insurance companies at the cost of farmers.
As we had cautioned, PM’s Fasal Bima Yojana (crop insurance scheme)
was designed to profit the insurance companies at the cost of the farmers— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 14, 2018
He claimed that insurance firms have made a profit of Rs.6460 crore in 2016-17, which is likely to jump to Rs.8000-9000 crore in 2017-18.
In 2016-17, insurance companies made a neat profit of Rs 6460 crore! Robbing the farmers to fatten the insurance companies
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 14, 2018
In 2017-18, insurance companies are likely to make a profit of Rs 8000-9000 crore
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 14, 2018
With an eye on the upcoming elections, Chidambaram mentioned that most of the 84 lakh farmers who withdrew from the scheme are from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Is there any wonder that 84 lakh farmers have withdrawn from the scheme? And the bulk of them belong to Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan that will vote shortly
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 14, 2018