At least 27,416 crop insurance claims for banana cultivation, filed on land where no crop existed, have been found bogus in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district, which is known for banana cultivation. Over 71,000 applications have been flagged as irregular, prompting police to register five FIRs against Common Service Centre (CSC) operators in a case that has wider implications for the implementation of the Centre’s crop insurance schemes across the country.
The irregularities were flagged through satellite based verification by the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre (MRSAC) under the Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS), a variant of the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY).
A total of 48 CSC operators have been identified as being involved in the fraud and have been booked by the police across five FIRs in Jalgaon district.
Out of nearly 99,930 applications received under the scheme in Jalgaon in 2025 participation rose by nearly 25 per cent compared to the previous year, officials said, pointing to an unusual spike in enrolments.
The claims were processed by the Agriculture Insurance Company of India (AIC), which carried out verification through MRSAC using satellite imagery, remote sensing, drones and ground level checks.
Officials said the irregularities were traced to the application stage, where CSC operators uploaded insurance claims showing banana cultivation on land where none existed, inflated the cultivated area, and submitted incorrect or incomplete land records. In several cases, applications were filed without valid survey numbers. Despite mandatory requirements such as 7/12 land records, geo tagged photographs and supporting documents, such entries were processed on the portal, indicating a breakdown of checks at the data entry level and fixing primary accountability on CSC operators.
According to the MRSAC verification report, which analysed satellite imagery captured between November 1 and December 15, 2025, a total of 92,461 applications covering 96,152.41 hectares were examined across Jalgaon district.
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The report found that 27,416 applications covering 28,475.1 hectares showed no banana crop on the ground. In another 39,575 cases, the insured area exceeded actual cultivation by 17,470.81 hectares, while 4,632 applications covering 4,816.63 hectares were filed without valid survey numbers. In all, over 71,000 applications were found to be irregular.
The verification also found that banana crop was not present on over 44,041.82 hectares across the surveyed area, underscoring the scale of mismatch between declared and actual cultivation.
Of the total irregularities, cases where no crop was found accounted for Rs 164.59 crore, while excess area claims accounted for Rs 100.98 crore, and applications without valid survey numbers accounted for Rs 27.84 crore.
Together, these irregularities account for claims worth Rs 293.41 crore, including Rs 142.39 crore as the state’s share and Rs 107.88 crore from the Centre, with the farmer contribution estimated at Rs 43.14 crore.
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Officials said the irregularities were linked to an insured value exposure of nearly Rs 748.70 crore, pointing to the scale of potential risk arising from inflated and invalid claims.
Officials said the verification helped prevent disbursal of over Rs 250.27 crore in government subsidy, highlighting the potential loss to the public exchequer that was averted.
The findings were reviewed by the Agriculture Commissioner on February 20, 2026, following which district authorities were directed to act. Based on these findings, the Agriculture Department, in a letter dated March 5, 2026 to the Jalgaon district collector, termed the issue serious and directed officials to initiate strict and time bound action, including registration of FIRs against CSC operators.
Following the directions, police registered five FIRs on March 18 at multiple police stations, including Muktainagar and Dharangaon, based on complaints filed by taluka agriculture officers.
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The FIRs state that the fraud took place during the October 1 to 31, 2025 application period, when CSC operators uploaded false crop details, inflated cultivation area and submitted incorrect or incomplete land records to facilitate insurance claims.
Officials said the discrepancies were not isolated, with a pattern emerging across multiple centres. The verification covered seven talukas, Raver, Yawal, Chopda, Jalgaon, Dharangaon, Muktainagar and Jamner, where similar irregularities were found. A total of 48 CSC centres have been identified as the source of a large number of such applications.
In several centres, 80 to 90 per cent of applications showed no crop on the ground, indicating systemic misuse rather than isolated cases.
Officials indicated that similar exercises may be expanded to other districts.
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Under the crop insurance scheme, the premium per hectare is Rs 57,800, of which farmers pay Rs 8,500, while the state and Centre bear the rest. The sum insured is about Rs 1.7 lakh per hectare, making inflated declarations directly linked to higher claims.
Officials said all such bogus applications will be cancelled, and the premium paid will be forfeited and transferred to the Centre’s technical fund, while further FIRs are expected as scrutiny continues.
