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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Fasal Bima Yojana needs fine-tuning -Rajalakshmi Nirmal

Fasal Bima Yojana needs fine-tuning -Rajalakshmi Nirmal

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published Published on Apr 7, 2017   modified Modified on Apr 7, 2017
-The Hindu Business Line

Short tenure of the policy is its biggest drawback. With El Nino expected to mar the monsoon this year, insurers may stay away

A normal monsoon in 2016, after two years of drought, has not only led to a bountiful harvest for farmers, but also filled the coffers of private insurers.

The Kharif 2016 season resulting in lower claims has helped private insurers in particular rake in good profits from the Centre’s flagship scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). But a chink in the armour is the short tenure of the policy that defeats the very purpose for which the scheme was launched.

Private insurers, not bound to bid every season, are unlikely to bet their shirt in a bad monsoon year. Also, since these players are not in the business for the long haul, it is unlikely that they would deploy their profits to improve processes and infrastructure as was envisioned earlier. A heads-I-win-tails-you lose scenario benefiting insurers hardly helps.

Insurers collected a total premium of around Rs.16,130 crore under the PMFBY in the 2016 kharif season. Data with BusinessLine shows that the total claims for the season amounted to only 60-70 per cent of premium collected.

The bidding game

Currently, in most States, bidding under PMFBY happens for a single season (six months) or two seasons (one year), and insurers who win the bid in one season are not bound to come for the next. After enjoying good profits last year, private insurers have not shown much interest this year. In this year’s bidding in Maharashtra, for instance, which happened a few weeks ago, most private players quoted exorbitantly high rates and outpriced themselves.

Five clusters have gone to public insurers (three to AIC and one each to United India and New India) and only one has been taken by a private insurer — IFFCO Tokio.

With expectations of El Nino playing spoilsport to the monsoon this year, private insurers, driven by commercial considerations, have no doubt decided to give this year’s bidding a go-by.

But this hardly serves the Centre’s purpose in launching the welfare scheme in the first place. A risk- or loss-sharing mechanism that ensures robust participation by all players in every season will go a long way in achieving the Centre’s objective of providing more efficient insurance support to farmers. The liability of the farmers under PMFBY is limited to 2 per cent of the SI (1.5 per cent in the case of rabi crops) with the balance being paid by the Government — with the Centre and the State making an equal contribution. This budgetary expense, like other development expenses and subsidies, is after all taxpayers’ money.

There are two parties who share the profits or loss in a crop insurance policy (here PMFBY) — one, the primary insurance company, and two, the re-insurers. The primary insurance company retains only 15-20 per cent of the risk and the balance is passed to re-insurers. The entire re-insurance risk is not taken by GIC (the public re-insurer) alone. It retains 50 per cent of it and hives off the rest to international re-insurers for a premium. So, when losses or profits arise, it is shared by all these players.

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The Hindu Business Line, 6 April, 2017, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/fasal-bima-yojana-needs-finetuning/article9620579.ece?homepage=true


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