Govt makes crop insurance schemes voluntary© business-standard.com

Govt makes crop insurance schemes voluntary

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The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the revamping of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS), making enrolment under both schemes voluntary for all farmers; increasing premium subsidy to 90 per cent for states in the Northeast from existing sharing pattern of 50:50; and provisioning of at least 3 per cent of total allocation of scheme for administrative expenses.

Briefing the media on the Cabinet decisions, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar said, “Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana has been made voluntary. Till now, crop insurance was mandatory for loanee [borrower] farmers, whose number has been about 58 per cent. The percentage of non-loanee farmers was around 42, which was only 5 per cent before 2015. Some of the states, farmers and farmers’ organisations felt that the scheme should be made voluntary. Therefore, the Union Cabinet today decided to make it voluntary.”

The changes, proposed to be implemented from 2020 Kharif season, also include allocation of business to insurance companies to be done for three years for both schemes, and use of technological solutions such as Smart Sampling Technique (SST) and optimisation of the number of Crop Cutting Experiments.