Centre claims PM's Agri Insurance Scheme to cover 15% more farmers this year

The Centre on Wednesday claimed that more than 30% of the total around 14 crore farmers will be covered under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana by the end of the current rabi sowing season, well above the target.

In the preceding 2015 kharif season, according to Centre's estimates, almost 26.04 farmers have been covered.

"At this rate, the government is well on course to cover almost 50% of farmers or 7 crore farmers under Fasal Bima Yojana in the next three years," a senior official said.

This has come despite 2015 being a drought year when the period of availing insurance was extended till September.

The total area covered under the scheme in the 2016 kharif season according to the latest estimates has been around 38.86 million hectares, up 15% from previous kharif season, while the sum insured this year has been around Rs 1,41,339 crore, almost 104% more than kharif 2015.

The Fasal Bima Yojana was launched with much fanfare in 2015 kharif is one of most ambitious programmes of the Narendra Modi government.

Furthermore, the government claimed that there has been a quantum jump of more than 6 times in the coverage of non-loanee farmers from 14.88 lakh in Kharif 2015 to 102.6 lakh in Kharif 2016.