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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Crop Insurance: A flagship scheme that may flatter to deceive -Harish Damodaran

Crop Insurance: A flagship scheme that may flatter to deceive -Harish Damodaran

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published Published on Jul 27, 2017   modified Modified on Jul 27, 2017
-The Indian Express

For farmers, a uniform 2 per cent premium rate on sum insured (SI) for all kharif or monsoon season foodgrains and oilseeds, while 1.5 per cent for rabi winter crops and 5 per cent for annual commercial and horticultural crops, is the lowest they can hope for.

The country couldn’t possibly have, at least on paper, a better agricultural crop insurance scheme than the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). For farmers, a uniform 2 per cent premium rate on sum insured (SI) for all kharif or monsoon season foodgrains and oilseeds, while 1.5 per cent for rabi winter crops and 5 per cent for annual commercial and horticultural crops, is the lowest they can hope for. The SI – the maximum amount insurance would pay in the event of damage – is equal to the “scale of finance” or loan limit fixed by banks for the crop concerned covering its estimated production cost. This again is reasonable compared to the previous schemes, which set the SI artificially low so as to limit claims and, in turn, made it unattractive for farmers to take insurance protection. Apart from low premiums (the gap vis-à-vis the higher actuarial rates based on statistical risk assessment payable to insurance companies is to be met by government subsidy) and production cost-linked SI, the PMFBY also promises speedy claim settlements through use of technology: Remote sensing/satellite imagery and drones for generating crop yield estimates and GPS handheld devices/smartphones for capturing field of images and transmission of data on real time basis.

If the actual yield of an insured crop in a particular village falls below a ‘threshold’ – the average for the past seven years excluding calamity years – it entitles all farmers in that area to a claim, equal to the difference divided by the threshold yield and multiplied by the SI. And the processing, approval and payment of final claims is to happen within three weeks from the receipt of yield data, which shall be available within a month from harvest.

But like all well-conceived schemes, the real test lies in implementation on the ground. And there, the story isn’t particularly inspiring.

The accompanying tables show the latest available data on premiums collected by insurance companies and claims paid to farmers under PMFBY for 2016-17, both in the kharif and rabi seasons. Gross premium receipts in what was the scheme’s very first year aggregated Rs 22,345 crore, of which roughly Rs 4,000 crore was shelled out by farmers and the balance coming as subsidy from the Centre and state governments. On the other hand, payment of claims totalled just Rs 5,876 crore.

Now, the mere fact of claims being just over a quarter of premiums cannot be held against the PMFBY. 2016 was a normal monsoon year unlike the preceding two ones, with the rains really failing only in southern and coastal Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and mainland Gujarat. In a year that saw no widespread drought, or even unseasonal rain/hailstorm events such as in March 2015, crop damage/loss claims were bound to be lower. To that extent, insurance companies cannot be charged with “profiteering”. They are expected to make money in normal years and lose when claims exceed premiums, which may well have happened had PMFBY been launched in 2015.

Please click here to read more.

The Indian Express, 27 July, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/crop-insurance-a-flagship-scheme-that-may-flatter-to-deceive-4768640/


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