Skip to main content

Government set to launch new crop insurance scheme

The government will launch the much-talked about new crop insurance scheme, which aims to keep a lower premium for farmers and faster settlement of claims, in 2016-17.

  • Under the proposed crop insurance scheme, the premium to be charged from farmers will be kept lower and focus will be on early settlement of claims.

  • New technologies, including drones, will be used to assess crop damage faster, he said.

  • Currently, farmers have to pay premium ranging from 4 to 15 per cent to insure crops.

Example: the case of Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region, where the actual premium for paddy is 22 per cent of the sum insured and farmers have to pay a premium as high as 5.75 per cent.

  • New Crop Insurance Scheme through which it will bring down the rate of premium to be paid by farmers to a maximum of 2.5 per cent of the sum insured.

  • The remaining premium will be paid by the Centre and the state governments .

  • It has estimated the expenditure at Rs 8,000 crore if 50 per cent of the total crop area of 194 million hectare is insured.

  • In 2015 only 27 per cent of the crop area was insured, which cost Rs 3,150 crore to the national exchequer.

  • Under the new formula, a farmer will not have to pay more than 2.5 per cent of the sum insured as premium for kharif crops (paddy, maize, millet, etc), 2 per cent for all rabi crops except wheat, 1.5 per cent for wheat and 2 per cent for all pulses.

  • The proposal also envisages a cap of 5 per cent on premium a farmer has to pay to get horticulture crops (including fruits, vegetables and commercial crops) insured.

  • By lowering premiums substantially, the government is banking on increasing the coverage of farmers from the existing 23 per cent to 50 per cent in the next two to three years.

  • While Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Kerala and a few districts in Andhra Pradesh have notified the existing crop insurance scheme, states like Punjab and Haryana have not done it so far.

  • The new scheme will also seek to address a long-standing demand of farmers and provide farm-level assessment for localised calamities, including hailstorms, unseasonal rains, landslides and inundation.

  • The government is planning to use smartphones to capture crop cutting data to reduce the time taken to finalise yield data .

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

India Tech Vision-2035

India Tech Vision-2035 India's technology thinktank under the ministry of science & technology has come out with `Technology Vision 2035' here at the ongoing Indian Science Congress, identifying the challenges ahead and how they can be dealt with through technological interventions while realising the dream of a developed India by the year 2035. The thinktank -Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) -in the vision document lists a technology roadmap for India, giving details of 12 sectors and technologies that in some cases exist but need to be deployed, some in the pilot stage that must be scaled up and technologies in R&D stage. It, in fact, talks about many future technologies, ranging from flying cars, real time translation software, personalised medicine, wearable devices, e-sensing (e-nose and e-tongue) to 100% recyclable materials among others which may be used in different areas to solve day-to-day problems “The trajectories del...
Post a Comment
Read more

Delhi Dialogue to focus on trading blocs (TPP) and Impact of TPP on India-ASEAN ties

Delhi Dialogue to focus on Impact of TPP on India-ASEAN ties The  impact of the U.S.-led mega trading and political blocs on India-ASEAN ties  is likely to be the highlight of the 8th round of  Delhi Dialogue . One emerging mega bloc, the  Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), received a major boost recently with the joining of Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore (ASEAN Countries). Diplomats are concerned that India will have to adjust to  the new set of security and economic rules  as increasing number of Southeast Asian countries join TPP, which began taking shape with the arrival of President Barack Obama to the White House in 2009. “The process of joining TPP by several countries in Southeast Asia has highlighted the conflicting segments in the Southeast Asian region. Delhi Dialogue will give us a chance to assess how India will have to adjust to these mega trading and political blocs  emerging in this region which is vital fo...
Post a Comment
Read more

12 April is Observed as International Day of Human Space Flight

12th April is being observed as the International Day of Human Space Flight to commemorate the date of the first human space flight in the history of mankind every year.  In 1961 Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet Union (USSR) cosmonaut undertook first successful first human space flight on this day. And this historic occasion had opened the way for space study for the benefit of all humanity. This historic day is celebrated as Cosmonautics Day in Russia and some other former USSR countries. This year 2016 is 55th anniversary of First Human Space Flight. Background After UN General Assembly had passed its resolution A/RES/65/271 of 7 April 2011, United Nations (UN) had declared 12th of April as the International Day of Human Space Flight. The main objective behind international celebration of this day is to memories each year at the international level the beginning of the space era for mankind. It also aims to reaffirm the important role of space science and technology...
Post a Comment
Read more