Ruckus in Rajya Sabha: From crop insurance to LPG crisis… Opposition surrounded the government

New Delhi: The issue of timely payment of the amount of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana given to compensate the farmers for their damaged crops due to natural disasters was raised in the Rajya Sabha on Friday. Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Congress’s Rajeev Shukla said that farmers are being paid less than Rs 10 in the name of crop insurance. He said that in many cases this amount amounts to only Rs 3.3.

He said that under this scheme, farmers have to complete complex procedures to get payment and in many cases they are refused payment citing some reason or the other. Shukla said that the most surprising thing is that even this nominal amount is not received by the farmer on time, hence his demand is that a time limit should be fixed for the payment of crop insurance amount. Bharatiya Janata Party’s Brijlal demanded increase in the medal allowance given to the soldiers and officers of paramilitary forces for gallantry medals.

He said that the prize money of the President’s Medal for Gallantry was increased from Rs 3000 to Rs 6000, but the prize money of the Police Medal for Gallantry has not been increased from Rs 2000 for a long time. He said that this amount should be increased to Rs 4000. Swati Maliwal of Aam Aadmi Party and Sanjay Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal raised the issue of nexus between private hospitals and health insurance companies and said that they are exploiting the consumers and not paying their claims amount in full. He demanded that strict laws be made to solve this problem. Ramji of Bahujan Samaj Party demanded a ban on adulteration of food items and spraying of chemicals on fruits and use of harmful chemicals for ripening them.

He said that these chemicals have adverse effects on health due to which people are falling ill. Bharatiya Janata Party’s Sanjay Seth demanded nomination of the tourist places of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh for inclusion in the UNESCO heritage list. Babubhai Desai of his own party expressed the need to formulate a comprehensive and long term program policy to deal with the increasing cases of skin cancer in the country.

He said that diagnostic centers should also be set up for this at the district level in the entire country. Surendra Nagar of Bharatiya Janata Party demanded to start the work of metro project in Greater Noida West soon. Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray’s Priyanka Chaturvedi questioned the judiciary’s comments on the chapter related to corruption in the judiciary in the NCERT book and the orders given regarding the curriculum team. Derek O’Brien of Trinamool Congress, raising the issue of rising prices of gas cylinders due to the West Asia crisis, said that the cylinder which was costing Rs 420 in 2014 has now cost Rs 914. He sarcastically said that the Central Government is only expert in making good slogans but in reality the situation is different.