Govt makes PM crop insurance optional : The Tribune India

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New Delhi, February 19

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today approved the revamping of “Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)” and “Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS)” to address existing challenges and loopholes in these programmes.

Approval to formation of 10,000 FPOs

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday gave its approval to a scheme for the formation of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), with a budgetary provision of Rs4,496 crore for five years
The Union Agriculture Minister said farmers will have better collective strength for access to quality input, technology, credit and marketing access through economies of scale

Dairy farmers’ loan subsidy up

The government also increased the interest subvention or subsidy on loans given to the dairy sector from 2% to 2.5%. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said the interest subvention revision would benefit 95 lakh farmers in 50,000 villages
Also, 28,000 bulk milk coolers with 140 lakh litres a day additional chilling capacity will be established. There will be creation of additional 210 tonne per day milk drying capacity and milk processing capacity of 12.6 tonne litres a day

Under the PMFBY, which was launched in February 2016 by PM Modi, it was earlier mandatory for loanee farmers to take insurance cover under the scheme. The cover has now been made optional.

With these changes, it is expected that farmers will be able to manage risk in agriculture production in a better way and succeed in stabilising the farm income, officials said. Further, it was decided to increase the insurance scheme’s coverage in the North-Eastern region.

The changes, which will be implemented from the kharif season, will enable quick and accurate yield estimation, leading to faster claims settlement.

Apart from this, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the upward revision of interest subvention “from 2 per cent to up to 2.5 per cent” for dairy farmers.

Farmers’ organisations and states had been raising concerns regarding the insurance schemes, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said. Highlighting the achievements of the scheme, Tomar said the insurance programme has covered 30 per cent of cultivable area.

The increased interest subsidy under the Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) with the revised outlay of Rs 11,184 crore will take the “the white revolution to the next level, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said. He added that upward revision in the interest subvention would benefit 95 lakh farmers spread over 50,000 villages.