Farmers in distress? Insurance companies pay just 17% of claims under schemes launched by Govt of India

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis may have given in to the demand of the state's striking farmers by announcing Rs 30,000 crore loan waiver, after 48 hours of agitation, but facts unearthed by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, reveal that insurance companies have paid just about 17% of the claims of crop failure.
Revealing this, a new e-book, “State of India's Environment 2017: In Figures”, released by CSE and “Down to Earth” magazine on the World Environment Day (June 5), says that the two insurance schemes of the Government of India -- the Prime Minister’s Fasal Beema Yojna (PMFBY) and the Restructured Weather-based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS), launched to “to enable farmers tide over chronic crop losses due to various calamities” have been of "little help to the distressed farmers.”

Quoting a new Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare report, the e-book says, under both the schemes, insurance claims to the tune of Rs 4,270.55 crore were made, of which only Rs 714.14 crore has been paid to the farmers as of March 2017.

Pointing out that 10 general insurance companies are offering crop insurance under PMFBY, launched in April 2016, the e-book reveals, it collected Rs 9,041.25 crore as premium during the kharif 2016 season. However, it paid just about Rs 570.10 crore of the total claims made, Rs 2,324.01 crore, which comes to just 25%.
The two schemes plan to cover 50% of the cropped area by 2019. Claiming a big success, the Government of India says, they have already cover 30 per cent of the cropped area, and are being implemented in 21 states. According to the e-book, close to 39 million farmers were covered under these schemes in the kharif season of 2016.
The e-book says, under the PMFBY, only one company, Universal Sompo GIC, operating only in Karnataka, has settled all the insurance claims. The rest have failed to achieve this level.
Four out of 10 companies mentioned in the report have not settled up to 75-100 per cent of insurance claims. IFFCO-TOKIO, which is operating in three states including drought-hit Maharashtra, is yet to pay over 86 per cent of the claims by March 2017, it adds.
Meanwhile, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA-ML) report has warned farm loan waivers would amount to 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) by the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, as other states are also likely to follow the BJP’s Maharashtra and UP governments.
BofA-ML estimates, the total amount of loan waiver would be to the tune of $40 billion, or Rs 2,57,000 crore in the run-up to 2019 general elections in the country. The states which have already announced loan waiver include Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, among others.

Comments

When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

A sector under siege? War and real estate: Navigating uncertainty in India's expanding market

I was a little surprised when I received an email alert from a top real estate consultant, Anarock Group , titled "Exploring War’s Effects on Indian Real Estate—When Conflict Meets Concrete," authored by its regional director and head of research, Dr. Prashant Thakur. I had thought that the business would wholeheartedly support what is considered a strong response to the dastardly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor.

Search This Blog