Hyderabad: The Centre’s crop insurance scheme has failed in Telangana state. The NDA government had launched the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana last year across the country and the state government notified the scheme and issued guidelines for implementation just prior to the commencement of the kharif season, in June 2016.
As per the Centre’s guidelines, the farmers who opt for crop loans from banks and cooperative credit societies should be brought under insurance coverage.
However, the insurance is optional for farmers, who don’t take loans.
The banks were asked to deduct the insurance premium directly from the crop loan while disbursing it to farmers. However, the banks did not strictly implement the orders, citing opposition from farmers.
Farmers’ associations say the government and banks had failed to create awareness among farmers on the advantages of the new scheme and on the need to take out crop insurance.
Farmers are opposed to crop insurance because they have had bad experiences in the past and had to wait for years to get the compensation, or had their claims rejected for trivial technical reasons.
The Centre’s new scheme has added advantages such as assessing crop loss by taking crop, weather, and village as a unit, and not taking the mandal as a unit as earlier. Moreover, the settlement period is 60 days and insurance coverage will be given not only for crop destruction but also for disrupted sowing due to adverse conditions.
Despite all this, not even 40 per cent of the farmers in the state have opted for the PMFBY. While lakhs of acres of crops get damaged every year due to drought, floods, or other natural calamities, not even 20 per cent of those who have subscribed to insurance schemes get their claims settled. Insurance firms deny compensation on one pretext or the other.
“Farmers are averse to being enrolled for crop insurance schemes due to the difficulties they have faced earlier in getting compensation. Though several villages in a particular mandal may witness drought and crop damage, if the meteorological department report says that the mandal has received normal rainfall, all their claims are rejected as the entire mandal was taken as a unit. Farmers feel payment of premium is a waste of money,” said Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, the minister for agriculture.
