Implementation Drawbacks In PMFBY

• 17 May 2019

Why is it in News?

As per Agriculture Ministry officials, of the total earmarked amount of Rs 1,400 crore for north-eastern States under PMFBY, only half a percent or Rs 8 crore was spent in 2018.

Drawbacks in Implementation:

• Four north-eastern States — Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram — are not covered under the scheme at all.
• In the States of North-East and Union Territory of Daman and Diu, insurance companies have not shown their interest and there is lack of state budgetary resources to pay the premium.
• The reasons for the lack of interest among insurance companies are:
  • High administrative costs and lack of proper land records.
  • Historic yield data is not available for these States.
  • It is difficult to conduct crop-cutting experiments needed for many of the horticulture crops.
• Lack of insurance coverage in these areas has resulted in thousands of devastated maize farmers due to the attack of armyworm pest there.
• Some of the states like Bihar and West Bengal have decided to withdraw from the scheme as they are developing their own State-level schemes, while Punjab never participated in the scheme.

Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana:

• It provides for a uniform premium to be paid by farmers at 2% for all Kharif crops, 5% for commercial and horticultural crops and 1.5% for rabi crops.
• The scheme will encourage the use of technology, such as smartphones to capture and upload data of crop cutting to reduce the delays in claim payment to farmers and use of remote sensing to reduce the number of crop cutting experiments.
• Comprehensive risk insurance is provided to cover yield losses due to non-preventable risks, such as Natural Fire and Lightning, Storm, Hailstorm, Cyclone, Typhoon, Tempest, Hurricane, Tornado. Risks due to Flood, Inundation and Landslide, Drought, Dry spells, Pests/ Diseases also will be covered.