Another Waive Of Relief For Farmers Amidst Covid-19 outbreak
Fighting a multi-front war against Covid-19 outbreak, the Union Government has come up with more relief to farmers. Union minister for agriculture and farmers welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar briefed media about Rs 1,008 crore payment to farmers in terms of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana popularly known as PMFBY.
Ammended Features
The Kisan Credit Card holders were considered as by default members of the PMFBY scheme. Earlier to the current amendment, Bima houses used to deduct premium money from the accounts of KCC holders account on advance. Due to current amendment such farmers can chose to be a part of PMFBY as optional scheme.
Current amendment also enables the farmer to chose separate kind of Bima for instance loss against drought or flood or both of the calamities.
A smart sampling technology will be used with the help of remote sensing (satellite imagining) for the assessment of loss. This technology will make the claim settlement process very transparent and quick.
As the Union and state governments share the burden of premium together (apart from the share borne by farmers), the states that will not pay there part of premium on time will be ruled out from the scheme. Also the subsidy by central government for the irrigated regions will be 25 per cent which will be 30 per cent in case of non irrigated regions.
Bima companies would also need to file the tenders for three years than the earlier duration of one year, which will make them more answerable and responsible towards farmers than the relatively short duration of one year.
This is also to be noticed that farmers used to pay 2 per cent of the overall premium for Kharif, 15 per cent for Rabi and 5 per cent of overall premium for horticulture or cash rich crops.
