Skip to main content

Union Cabinet approves Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana

The Cabinet approved Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojna, a crop insurance scheme aimed to ensure farmers’ welfare.

  • The scheme will offer more insurance with less premium, and lead to rise of purchasing capacity of farmers.

  • The new scheme replaces the existing National Agricultural Insurance Scheme.

  • Government liability on premium subsidy will be shared by central and state governments on fifty-fifty basis.

  • The budget for Crop Insurance will be substantially increased from 2823 crore rupees in 2015-16 to 7750 crore rupees in 2018-19.

  • Remote Sensing, smart phones and drones will be used for quick estimation of crop losses and early settlement of claims.

  • 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.

  • 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. 

  • 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 .

The new Crop Insurance Scheme is in line with One Nation – One Scheme theme.

Comparing the new insurance scheme with the previous schemes:
NoFeature
NAIS
[1999]
MNAIS
 [2010]
PM Crop Insurance Scheme[2016]
1Premium rateLowHigh

Lower than even NAIS
(Govt to contribute 5 times that of farmer)
2One Season – One PremiumYesNoYes
3Insurance Amount coverFullCappedFull
4On Account PaymentNoYesYes
5Localised Risk coverageNo
Hail storm
Land slide
Hail storm
Land slide
Inundation
6Post Harvest Losses coverageNoCoastal areas – for cyclonic rainAll India – for cyclonic + unseasonal rain
7Prevented Sowing coverageNoYesYes
8Use of TechnologyNoIntendedMandatory
9AwarenessNoNoYes (target to double coverage to 50%)

Comments

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...

Civil Service Bytes News Analysis January 2016

Morning News Analysis with Mind Map   Odd-even scheme for cars rolls out in the National Capital to curb vehicular pollution.  Centre invites Gorkha Janmukti Morcha for tripartite talks on the Gorkhaland Territorial        Administration agreement.  In Bangladesh, two students sentenced to death for killing of a blogger in 2013.  The World welcomes New year 2016 with pomp and show.  In Sports; Indian Test Captain Virat Kohli is BCCI's 'Cricketer of the Year' 2015; Mithali Raj picked for women's top award.  And, India to meet Afghanistan in the final of the South Asian Football Federation Cup.

RCEP draft moots tough curbs on cheap medicines

RCEP draft moots tough curbs on cheap medicines Analysis of leaked chapter of the draft RCEP agreement Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement – being negotiated by 16 countries (10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and 6 other countries that have Free Trade Agreements with the ASEAN) A leaked chapter of the draft RCEP agreement reveals that the  trade pact in its current form could reduce access to affordable medicines in many developing countries . The chapter on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is part of draft of the RCEP agreement. India has opposed some damaging proposals initiated by the RCEP members, particularly Japan and Korea,  involving patent extensions , restrictive rules on copyright exceptions , and  other anti-consumer measures . Some member countries, who are part of both the TPP [the U.S.-led Trans Pacific Partnership] and the RCEP, are trying to push for the TPP standards in...