(Image source from: Everything about NDA government’s crop insurance scheme})

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojna is the flagship crop insurance scheme of the NDA government to reach out farmers. According to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, "The scheme will create a security shield for farmers and will provide financial relief to them.”

•Aim of the government is to reach out farmers through the scheme.
•Crucial element of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojna is to get down the premium rate to be paid by farmers to a maximum of 2% of the sum insured.
•The rest would be paid by the State and Central government.
•Earlier, a premium ranging from 4% to 15% has to be paid by farmers to insure their crops.
•The Government is aiming to increase the insurance coverage to 50% in the next few years.
•According to Mr Singh, the government removed deficiencies in the scheme.
•A differential premium method of the scheme would allow a farmer to pay 2% of the sum insured as premium for kharif crops and 1.5% for rabi crops.
•New scheme allows for an immediate payment of 25% of the due compensation.
• The amount would be directly transferred to the bank accounts of the farmers.
•The scheme offers compensation for loss of even the seed plants besides post-harvest damage.
•It will address a long-standing demand of farmers, by providing assistance to localized calamities such as unseasonal rains, hailstorms, landslides and inundation.
•It does not rely on yield data; rather it relies on remote-sensing data and drones for the assessment of the crop damage.
•Avoids delays in settling claims.

According to Urban development and poverty alleviation minister M Venkaiah Naidu, "Because of area-based assessments -- in which the results of crop cutting experiments over a small area are used to pay claims for a larger area -- farm-level assessment is not done at all. Once farm-level assessments begin, claims for losses suffered in localised calamities will get paid."

-Sumana