The
Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today has
approved the ‘Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana’.
IT
has been considered a path breaking scheme for farmers’ welfare.
Highlights the scheme:
>>
There will be a uniform premium of only 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif
crops and 1.5% for all Rabi crops.
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In case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium to be paid by
farmers will be only 5%. The premium rates to be paid by farmers are very low
and balance premium will be paid by the Government to provide full insured
amount to the farmers against crop loss on account of natural calamities.
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There is no upper limit on Government subsidy. Even if balance premium is 90%,
it will be borne by the Government.
Then and Now:
Earlier, there was a provision of capping the premium rate which resulted in
low claims being paid to farmers. This capping was done to limit Government
outgo on the premium subsidy. This capping has now been removed and farmers
will get claim against full sum insured without any reduction.
Use of Technology:
The use of technology will be encouraged to a great extent. Smart phones will
be used to capture and upload data of crop cutting to reduce the delays in
claim payment to farmers. Remote sensing will be used to reduce the number of
crop cutting experiments.
>> The new Crop Insurance Scheme is in
line with One Nation – One Scheme theme. It incorporates the best features of all
previous schemes and at the same time, all previous shortcomings/weaknesses
have been removed.