C M Sharma
On 23 October, 2021, heavy and widespread rains, accompanied with hail storm, lashed different parts of districts of Jammu region, bringing devastation to rice and vegetable crops which stood at maturation stage in thousands of hectares area. The precipitation of 80 to 100 mm. just within 12 hours was damaging enough to cause lodging of crops and/or shattering of grains in coarse and semi-fine varieties of rice and high value basmati rice varieties in Jammu. Many areas under maize crop were also affected. Irrecoverable damage was caused to the freshly sown and sprouting seeds, growing seedlings, tubers and bulbs of rabi season crops like toria, mustard, vegetables, onion, garlic, potato and exotic vegetables like broccoli also.
The sudden aberration in weather conditions shattered all the hopes that farmers had harboured for earning handsome income from an anticipated bumper harvest. The loss at a time when bumper yields were expected brought to mind, quotes from the renowned novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. Often writing about the beauties of nature, Thomas Hardy has penned down its cruelty also. In the ‘Mayor of Casterbridge’, he writes, “… a man might gamble upon the square green areas of fields as readily as upon those of a card room.” Incidentally, more than 70 percent of the cropped area of Jammu region in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is rain-fed and not irrigated. The gamble therefore becomes trickier and challenging. However, welfare being the main plank of the government, it becomes her moral duty to adequately compensate the victims of natural calamities. Affected farmers are naturally clamouring for compensation.
After undertaking an extensive survey of the rain and hail storm hit areas, the Director of Agriculture, Jammu, K.K. Sharma and Joint Director Arvinder Singh Reen likened these crop losses to a natural calamity. Urgent instructions were flashed out to concerned field officers with instructions from the government to immediately furnish a detailed report of crop damages, village-wise and farmer-wise, so that provision of every possible assistance and support to suffering farm-families could be considered at the earliest. For expeditious collection of information on crop damage, the farmers have been advised to use their mobile apps to send photographs of their damaged field crops to concerned agriculture officers of the respective areas along with copies of relevant land record, Kisan Credit Card, Adhaar Card and detailed address of the location as the proof of damage. The farmers, who have applied for crop insurance under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), have been asked to send the relevant documents to the concerned insurance companies also.
Government of India’s flagship scheme Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) is already operational for Kharif 2021 cropping season in Jammu, Samba and Udhampur districts of Jammu division and Anantnag district of Kashmir division to ensure comprehensive risk cover for notified crops of farmers against all non-preventable natural risks from pre-sowing to post-harvest stage. It was informed that 19,529 hectares of the cropped area (9820 hectares under paddy and 9709 hectares under maize) belonging to 43,225 farmers (20,428 cultivators of paddy and 22,797 cultivators of maize) have been duly covered under the scheme during the season. The gross premium paid for paddy is Rs. 9,94,12,082 in which the UT Govt. and Central Govt. have made an equal contribution of Rs. 3,98,88,611.24 (40%) each and the farmers’ contribution is Rs. 1,96,34,859.82 (20%). The gross premium paid for maize crop is Rs. 10,52,03,056 only in which the UT Govt. and Central Govt. have made an equal contribution of Rs. 44834803 (42.5%) each and the farmers’ contribution is Rs. 19634859.82 (15%). The number of farmers insured for paddy in Jammu, Samba and Udhampur districts is 14795, 4748 and 885 respectively and for maize the number of farmers insured is 7354, 2040 and 13403 respectively.
The officers of Agriculture Department have assured that every effort shall be made to adequately compensate the distressed farmers for their losses and the claims accrued shall be duly paid. It is pertinent to mention however, that although the number of farmers covered under PMFBY is limited, but the number of farmers adversely affected by bad weather may be many times more. So, the government needs to work out modalities and consider relief, even for those farmers who have not applied for PMFBY.
Since all types of weather aberrations – rains, hailstorm, snow, fog, frost, dry spell, etc., make almost all the crops vulnerable to heavy production losses and rendering the economic plight of farmers miserable, therefore the Governments need to persuade the farmers and all other stakeholders to get pro-actively involved to promote and implement schemes and measures aimed at minimizing the financial losses from crop damage due to bad weather, in the spirit of cooperation and contribution. Cooperation and contribution are the essentials of insurance schemes because these aim at pooling of financial resources and peril mitigation through risk distribution amongst a targeted group of people. PMFBY was launched across the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India from Kharif 2016 in keeping with these essentials and since then, millions of farmers in the country have benefitted from the scheme.
In an article, Shri Siraj Hussain, a Visiting Senior Fellow, ICRIER and a retired Union Agriculture Secretary wrote in the Wire on 22 July, 2020, “Due to the variety of crops even within a cluster, the small size of farms, differences in farming practices, uncertainty of weather and budgetary constraints of state governments, there is no central scheme which is more difficult to administer than this.”
PMFBY had replaced the older National Agricultural Insurance Scheme and the Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme. The Weather-Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) had remained in place, though its premium rates were streamlined with the latest scheme. PMFBY has more farmer-friendly provisions than its predecessors. It has reduced the burden of premium on farmers significantly and expanded coverage. It has also promoted use of advanced technologies to estimate losses accurately and accelerate payments to farmers. The other positives under PMFBY include, ‘the sum insured closer to the cost of production than before,’ thereby meaning that in case of losses, farmers should get significantly higher compensation than before. However, taking cognizance of some other identified weaknesses, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW), Government of India (GoI) endeavoured to make the Scheme more effective, transparent and auto-administration driven with the intention to minimize manual interventions and eliminate usage of variable methodologies for implementation and execution on the ground. Based on the outcome of the consultations and discussions with State Governments, Farmers Organizations, Insurance Companies, Re-Insurance Companies, Financial Institutions, Research and Technical Organizations and the Central Government Ministries and Departments to identify the key challenges and finalize possible solutions/remedial measures to address such challenges, a series of recommendations were obtained to improve implementation of the PMFBY scheme. Relevant corrections/changes were approved by the Union Cabinet for incorporation in the Operational Guidelines (OGs) of PMFBY/Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBICS).
The latest improvements made in the scheme by GoI in February 2020 include the decision to make enrolment 100% voluntary for all farmers from 2020 Kharif; Insurance companies to create real awareness among farmers about the benefits of crop risk coverage; Crop insurance to become an informed choice for loanee farmers, just as it already is for their non-loanee counterparts. Limiting Central Subsidy under these schemes for premium rates up to 30% for unirrigated areas/crops and 25% for irrigated areas/crops thereby shifting the onus to the insurance companies’, as they would have to actively seek out farmers and convince them of the importance of crop insurance; Granting more flexibility to states/UTs to implement PMFBY with the option to select any number of additional risk covers/features like prevented sowing, localised calamity, mid-season adversity, and post-harvest losses; Penalising the Pendency if states don’t release their share before March 31 for the Kharif season and September 30 for rabi (they would not be allowed to participate in the scheme in subsequent seasons); Investing 0.5% of the total premium collected on information, education and communication (IEC) activities and Setting up of a Central Advisory Committee with the implementing state governments and insurance companies to ensure uniformity of message across the country and remove gaps in dissemination of information.
Siraj Hussain, the former Union Agriculture Secretary has attributed due credit to the government for undertaking major changes in the scheme guidelines twice, in September 2018 and February 2020, and appreciated the government’s responsiveness to the criticism of the scheme from various quarters.
Now, with the government standing as the guarantor of interests of farmers as well as the service providers for the sake of viability of agriculture and enterprises respectively with the underlying objective of public welfare, agriculture insurance is recognised as an important part of the safety net for farmers to deal with the impacts of extreme and unseasonal weather. Therefore, in the era of climate change, universal, subsidized agriculture insurance is crucial to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of farmers. A careful incorporation of appropriate recommendations and eradication of anomalies in the farmer-friendly, fair and transparent PMFBY is helping the government make its implementation truly effective, but the farmers must be educated to understand its relevance while the government and the insurance companies need to keep the premium for poorer and the poorest farmers at the minimum and expand the scope of area coverage and ensure adherence to timelines necessary for its success.
The author is Dy. Director of Agriculture, J&K Govt. (Retd.)
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