The Union
Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today has approved
the ‘Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana’ - a path breaking scheme for farmers’
welfare.
The highlights of this
scheme are as under:
i)
There
will be a uniform premium of only 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops
and 1.5% for all Rabi crops. In case of annual commercial and horticultural
crops, the premium to be paid by farmers will be only 5%. The premium rates to
be paid by farmers are very low and balance premium will be paid by the
Government to provide full insured amount to the farmers against crop loss on
account of natural calamities.
ii)
There
is no upper limit on Government subsidy. Even if balance premium is 90%, it
will be borne by the Government.
iii)
Earlier,
there was a provision of capping the premium rate which resulted in low claims
being paid to farmers. This capping was done to limit Government outgo on the
premium subsidy. This capping has now been removed and farmers will get claim
against full sum insured without any reduction.
iv)
The
use of technology will be encouraged to a great extent. Smart phones will be
used to capture and upload data of crop cutting to reduce the delays in claim
payment to farmers. Remote sensing will be used to reduce the number of crop
cutting experiments.
The
new Crop Insurance Scheme is in line with One Nation – One Scheme theme. It
incorporates the best features of all previous schemes and at the same time,
all previous shortcomings/weaknesses have been removed.
er Crop
Insurance Scheme - Comparison
|
No
|
Feature
|
NAIS
[1999]
|
MNAIS
[2010]
|
PM Crop
Insurance Scheme
|
|
1
|
Premium
rate
|
Low
|
High
|
Lower than
even NAIS
(Govt to
contribute 5 times that of farmer)
|
|
2
|
One
Season – One Premium
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
3
|
Insurance
Amount cover
|
Full
|
Capped
|
Full
|
|
4
|
On
Account Payment
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
5
|
Localised
Risk coverage
|
No
|
Hail storm
Land slide
|
Hail storm
Land slide
Inundation
|
|
6
|
Post
Harvest Losses coverage
|
No
|
Coastal areas
- for cyclonic rain
|
All India –
for cyclonic + unseasonal rain
|
|
7
|
Prevented
Sowing coverage
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
8
|
Use
of Technology
(for
quicker settlement of claims)
|
No
|
Intended
|
Mandatory
|
|
9
|
Awareness
|
No
|
No
|
Yes (target to
double coverage to 50%)
|
One
Nation – One Scheme: best features of all previous schemes
incorporated + all previous shortcomings / weaknesses removed
*****
AKT/VBA/SH