PM's Crop Insurance Scheme includes most of MP's suggestions

Madhya Pradesh is now unlikely to push ahead with its own scheme

The Centre’s new crop insurance scheme seems to have been influenced by the spadework already done by Madhya Pradesh in framing its own insurance policy for farmers.

Officials said the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Bharatiya Janata Party government in Madhya Pradesh had proposed a number of suggestions during a discussion on crop insurance held in Bhopal in June 2015, which have now been incorporated in the national scheme.

The Centre has always claimed states have been actively consulted to bring out the new scheme.

Officials said Madhya Pradesh had planned to bring its own crop insurance scheme, for which much of the ground work had already been done. But, the state might not push ahead with its own scheme, as the national policy has incorporated most of its suggestions.

The Madhya Pradesh policy had proposed to cover all types of natural calamities through insurance, which the new policy also does.

It had also proposed that the crop insurance scheme should be farm-based and should aim at including those individual farmers who have suffered loss, while the entire village might not have been affected.

In the new crop insurance scheme, called the Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme, individual farmland has been made unit of measurement.

Officials said in the Madhya Pradesh version of the crop insurance scheme, loanee farmers were to be compulsorily included, while non-loanee farmers would also be encouraged to adopt the same.

In the national scheme, too, the same has been incorporated.

The Centre’s crop insurance scheme had fixed a premium amount of a flat two per cent for all crops grown during the kharif season, while for those sown during the rabi season, it has been fixed at 1.5 per cent.

For horticulture crops, the premium amount of a flat five per cent has been fixed. Centre and states will jointly share the burden of subsidy. The MP policy, too, had spoken about keeping premiums reasonably low.

Officials said Chouhan, during one of his deliberation for the state’s insurance scheme, had proposed that 25 per cent of the claim amount be transferred into the bank account of farmers immediately after a natural disaster. The Centre’s new policy has incorporated that as well.

MP had also favoured using new and modern technologies such as remote sensing, satellite imagery and digital photography to eliminate the possibility of human errors in productivity loss assessment.

Notably, Chouhan was among the first to congratulate, the Centre on the new scheme. “Highly thankful to PM @narendramodi for historic decision to bring new crop insurance scheme. It will certainly provide succor to farmers,” Chouhan had tweeted from Singapore.

COVER FOR CROPS

• All states consulted before bringing out new policy
   
• New scheme fixed premium for kharif crops at 2 per cent and rabi crops at 1.5 per cent
   
• Centre plans to cover 50 per cent farmers under  the scheme in the next few years