Two working teams, arrange by the ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare to evaluate the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), has really helpful focused premium subsidy for small farmers, empowering the Centre to levy penalty on states for any delay in subsidy settlements and intensive use of distant sensing information for crop yield evaluation.
The final two years noticed a steep fall within the variety of farmers and crop space lined underneath the federal government’s flagship crop insurance coverage scheme (see chart). While the claims to premium ratio has come down in recent times, bettering the viability of the scheme from the insurers’ viewpoint, many states have of late developed chilly toes on it.
“Targeted subsidies for weaker sections of the farming community can increase penetration, ensure uniform coverage and bring down the average premium rates,” a sub-committee on ‘actuarial aspects’ underneath the working group constituted to look at ‘alternate risk management mechanisms’ underneath PMFBY, has mentioned.
Last yr, the federal government constituted the working teams comprising officers from the Centre, key crop-producing states and senior officers of the state-owned insurance coverage firms to recommend ‘sustainable, financial and operational models,’ for PMFBY.
The scheme is at the moment being carried out in 20 states/union territories.
The Punjab authorities hasn’t adopted PMFBY since its 2016 launch, whereas states like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar exited the scheme, due to “higher cost of premium subsidy” to be borne by them. Many states have requested for capping of premium subsidies underneath PMFBY.
The group has additionally acknowledged that farmers enrolled underneath varied schemes like PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, the place Rs 6,000 is yearly transferred to round 9 crore farmers, could also be offered protection as per the eligibility criterion.
According to the agriculture ministry estimates, there are round 140 million farmer households within the nation. Enrolment underneath PMFBY has not crossed 20 million within the final three years.
According to evaluation by the working group, since its launch in 2016, PMFBY premium has elevated by greater than six-fold which has led to a rise in subsidy legal responsibility of the federal government. In February 2020, the federal government made PMFBY voluntary for farmers whereas beforehand it was obligatory for the farmers to take insurance coverage cowl underneath the scheme.
Under the closely subsidised PMFBY, the premium to be paid by farmers is fastened at simply 1.5% of the sum insured for rabi crops and a couple of% for kharif crops, whereas it’s 5% for money crops. The stability premium is equally shared amongst the Centre and states and in case of North-Eastern states, the premium is break up between the Centre and states in a 9:1 ratio.
Citing the delays in launch of subsidy by states and resultant delayed declare settlements in lots of states, the group has referred to as for empowering the Centre to levy penal costs on the state or alter such subsidies in opposition to different liabilities of the central authorities in case state authorities fail to pay in stipulated occasions.
A parliamentary panel final yr had acknowledged that the delays in settlement of claims are primarily attributable to causes like delayed transmission of yield information, late launch of states’ share in premium subsidy and yield information, yield associated disputes between insurance coverage firms and states, non-receipt of account particulars of some farmers for switch of claims.
Earlier, the federal government had recognized hardening of the premium market, lack of adequate participation in tenders, insufficient underwriting capability of insurers amongst components stopping adoption of PMFBY on a big scale.
The sub-committee on ‘adoption of applied sciences for yield estimation underneath PMFBY has really helpful distant sensing satellite tv for pc and climate information for quicker yield evaluation so the delay in settlements might be addressed.
For taking farmers in confidence within the case of distant sensing know-how, the sub-group has acknowledged that not like crop slicing experiments-based yield estimation, evaluation utilizing satellite tv for pc information can’t be bodily noticed by farmers, thus result in discontent or litigation.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”