What is Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana? Know more about it

About the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana:-

The government scheme of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was launched on 18^TH February, 2016 by Pradhan Mantri Narendra Modi. The ministry which was important for this scheme’s planning and implementation was Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare. As it’s name suggests Bima it is about giving an insurance to farmers.

This scheme of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana is a replacement of two scheme which are National Agriculture Insurance Scheme and Modified National Agriculture Insurance scheme. This scheme have the combination of best features of these two earlier implemented schemes and tried to remove the shortcoming of those two schemes.

The kinds of risks and crop damages which are being covered in this scheme are:-

Deficiency of rainfall and adverse conditions of the climate, widespread pest, drought, flood, disease attack or any such environmental natural disasters of unseasonal rains and many more such schemes. Also this scheme cover the risk of attack by wild animals etc.

What is excluded in these situations and risks are the cases of War, Riots, and nuclear risks, kindred perils, malicious damage, theft, act of enmity, grazed or destroyed by any domestic animals. In these certain cases farmers are not allowed to exercise this insurance.

The companies and agencies who were someway stakeholders in this whole process of insurance were some companies who were responsible to provide farmers with insurances.

These are Agriculture Insurance Company of India, Reliance General Insurance Company, SBI general Insurance Company, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company, Tata AIG Insurance Company and HDFC- ERGO general Insurance Company.

This is not mandatory for the farmers to enroll in this scheme of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. And there some criteria only in those cases they can take the advantages of the insurance.

Aims and Objectives of this scheme:-

The scheme of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was launched by PM Narendra Modi, keeping various aims and objectives in the plan of implementation. Here below written are some of the objectives of this scheme:-

1. This scheme aims at providing a financial support or an insurance to farmers who are suffering from crop loss or damage of the crops in any unforeseen events which can harm the small farmer finances.
2. To make the income of farmers more stable as then, they will feel more secure while pursuing farming and also continue to farm which will beneficial to everyone.
3. This scheme aimed at encouraging the farmers to use some other developed and modern tool and ways of farming which will encourage the innovation in the field of agriculture and also give those ways to adopt some new agriculture practices.
4. To ensure that farmers will get more food security, crop diversification and this will result in elevating the growth of agriculture sector.
5. To protect the farmers from risks and protect them from any of that situation where they might end up losing financially.

Progress:-

This scheme which is Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana is being launched by the government with some relevancy with the past schemes while reducing the shortcomings of the scheme too.

This scheme was launched for the implementation of Kharif 2016 season. Here are some of the facts which shows it’s progress report and important to consider.

1. In the Financial Year of 2016-2017, Farmers insured were 583.7 lakhs, Area which was insured was 567.3 lakh hectare and farmers benefitted were 156.4 Lakhs.
2. In the Financial Year of 2019 and 2020. Farmers who were insured 422 lakhs, area insured was 328 lakh hectare and farmers benefitted were 184.9 Lakhs.

Benefits:-

Here are various benefits which farmers will get while implementation of the scheme of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana which are written below:-

1. This scheme aims at reducing the financial burden which a farmer bear and offered them low premium rates. This made the insurance payment more easy, affordable and efficient.
2. This scheme was advantage to Individualize Loss Assessment for localized perils like hailstorm, landslides disasters and gives them a good compensation for their losses too.
3. The farmers who were enrolled for the scheme of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana can cope with conditions of adverse financial losses. This prevent the conditions like sowing and localized losses.
4. This scheme was also helpful in making the whole system more digitalized which promoted technology which helped in making it more convenient as farmers can upload the photos of their crops. Remote sensing technology helped in reducing the need of physically cutting crops for doing experiments. This reduced the claim processing delays too.
5. It gives an insurance of 2% of SI or Actuarial rate(lesser) on Kharif crops. Like Food and Oilseeds, 1.5% of SI or Actuarial Rate (Less) like Food and oilseed crops, and 5% of SI or Actuarial Rate for both Kharif and Rabi crops like Annual commercial crops and Annual Horticulture Crops.

Way Forward:-

Prime Minister Fasal Bima Yojana is a great initiative by the government to give a good solution to farmers to let them have an insurance at a reduced rates of premium all around the country. Here are some suggestions to fast implementation with more coverage of area:-

1. Making farmers more educated about the scheme and providing them with the new modern methods of farming which can be more efficient to them and increase in their productivity.
2. Covering some more risk situations under the scheme by making a new category like riots or damage by domestic animals too.
3. Investing in more agricultural technology and asking the farmers to use these technology in their farming in daily life of them. This will also help in encouraging in the innovation sector of the field of farming and a growth of country lies in technology.
4. Making the farmers more literate about the technology of farming, the tools which are used in this space and sector of agriculture and promoting them to use it.
5. The investment by the state government to make this scheme and implement the new insurance model is important.