Subheadline: Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar directed officials to remove a society secretary after farmers said their premiums were not transferred to the DCC Bank.
Bengaluru | September 8, 2026
Karnataka Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Tuesday directed officials to remove the secretary of a self-help society after 93 farmers from Ittanahalli village in Jewargi taluk, Kalaburagi district, said their crop-insurance claims had been rejected because the premiums they paid were not transferred to the DCC Bank.
The issue was raised during Shivakumar’s visit to the Yeshwanthpur Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) market in Bengaluru. A farmer told the chief minister that farmers had paid their crop-insurance premiums to the society but later received messages saying their insurance claims had been rejected because the money had not been deposited with the bank.
After examining the list of farmers who had made the payments, Shivakumar instructed officials to remove the society secretary, according to the report. The report did not state whether the rejected claims had been restored or whether compensation would be paid to the affected farmers.
During the visit, the chief minister also spoke with onion, garlic, potato and coconut growers, traders and market-yard owners about payments, commissions, weighing practices and the cost of bringing produce to market. He asked farmers whether they received payments on time, whether police stopped them while transporting produce and whether market operators collected commissions from them.
Shivakumar personally checked the weighing of onions at the market. Farmers told him that commissions in markets in Kalaburagi, Bidar and Vijayapura ranged from ₹8 to ₹10, while they said farmers were not charged a commission at Yeshwanthpur APMC. The report did not specify the unit or transaction basis for the commission figures cited by the farmers.
Farmers also said that reduced rainfall had affected onion yields. They typically harvest 150 to 200 packets per acre, they said, but this season the yield had fallen to about 50 packets. They added that excessive rain could cause onions to rot in the field and that, in some cases, the price obtained would not cover the cost of transporting the crop to the market.
The chief minister asked traders how much they paid to the APMC. One trader said the payment was 60 paise for every ₹100, while another said the payment was ₹1. Shivakumar said farmers should inform him if they were charged more than the applicable amount and warned that action would be taken against those collecting excess money.
He also directed officials to prevent manipulation of weights when traders buy directly from farmers outside the APMC. Farmers told him that some buyers set a price and then allegedly altered the weight while collecting produce directly from farms. The report did not provide details of any new enforcement mechanism or a deadline for the officials’ instructions.
The chief minister asked officials to collect information from farmers in Chitradurga district’s Challakere taluk who said they had paid ₹6,500 per hectare for crop insurance but had not received any benefit. Further action on those complaints was not specified in the report.
