PANJIM: Heavy rainfall, successive flooding has resulted into crop damage and farmers in Goa incurring huge losses in these two years. Startlingly, even in such difficult conditions, the estimates shows that farmers have paid little heed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious crop insurance scheme- Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY).
Launched in 2016, to provide succour to farmers in case of crop loss or damage due to unseasonal rainfall, drought and other natural calamities, the PMFBY saw only little above 6 per cent farmers opting for the scheme since its inception.
In short, despite the efforts of the Directorate of Agriculture, there hasn’t been much result.
In all, only 2,158 farmers have been insured under the scheme out of 38,000 actual registered that is Krishi Card holders, in the State. A amount of whopping Rs 14.45 crore (Rs 14,45,64,472.96) is the total insurance covered for an area of 1,358.91 hectares under the scheme so far.
Of these 2,158 farmers, so far 658 have opted for the benefit under the scheme with a total claim amount of Rs 13.91 lakhs.
PMFBY is an actuarial premium based scheme under which farmer has to pay maximum premium of 2 per cent for Kharif, 1.5 per cent for Rabi food and oilseed crops and 5 per cent for annual commercial/horticultural crops and remaining part of the actuarial/bidded premium is shared equally by the Centre and State Government.
As per the information available from the department, for the 2016 Kharif season, total 744 farmers benefited under the scheme, covering total area of 543.45 ha and a sum assured was 576.44 lakhs; whereas for Rabi season in 2016-17, total 13 farmers were insured at a total value of Rs 2.52 lakhs.
For the 2017 kharif season, 537 farmers were covered with total sum assured being Rs 446.12 lakhs for an area of 396.11 ha.
The year 2018 saw 338 kharif farmers getting their crop insured for an amount of Rs 325.03 lakhs for an area admeasuring 271.84ha. For the same period for Rabi, only one farmer got enrolled.
The year 2019, which reported one of the worst flooding in the North Goa belt, saw 740 farmers in Kharif season and another 145 in Rabi season getting their crop insured. For Kharif, a total of 102.92ha of area is insured for sum of Rs 74.29 lakhs, while for Rabi an amount of Rs 20.04 lakh insurance is granted to 40.10ha of agriculture land.
The State subsidy is released through the corpus fund available with Agriculture Insurance Company (AIC), Mumbai.
So far, a total premium has been Rs 19.43 lakh (Rs19,43,898.51) of which the State and the Center share is Rs 1.19 lakhs each while the farmers’ share is 17.05 lakhs.
“The scheme has been implemented in the State since 2016. However, the response of farmers is very poor. We want more and more farmers to come forward and get their crops insured. This will benefit the farmers in a long run,” department sources said.
The sources added that ‘PMFBY provides a comprehensive insurance cover against failure of the crop thus helping in stabilising the income of the farmers’.
There are around 52,000 farmers in the State, of which only 38,000 have opted for Krishi card. The department has recently initiated an extensive drive to get maximum farmers under Krishi card.
