Animals are reported to widely destroy standing crops across seasons in a lot of states and farmers have often highlighted the need to cover such damages under insurance claims.
The Union government has decided to expand the ambit of the PM Fasal Bima Yojana, the flagship farm insurance scheme, to include crop damage by animals as a ground for payouts, a long-standing demand by farmers, an official said on Monday.
Animals are reported to widely destroy standing crops across seasons in a lot of states and farmers have often highlighted the need to cover such damages under insurance claims.
Experts say animal protection laws in many states, which prohibit interstate trade in cattle, have led to an increase in its population. The government runs a centrally sponsored scheme for care and protection of various breeds of cows and buffaloes. Yet, stray cattle remains a problem for farmers.
Conservationists say destruction of wildlife habitat, such as encroachment of elephant corridors, has also increased human-animal conflicts, leading to loss of lives, property and crops in states such as West Bengal, Kerala and Assam.
In one 2018 study by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research in the Indian Journal of Animal Sciences, wildlife such as elephants, boars and ‘neel gai’ herds, routinely eat or invade up to 30-50% of cereals and horticultural crop lands in 10 states.
“This has been a key reason for economic losses for farmers, for which only government compensation in some instances was a way out. Guidelines of the PM Fasal Bima Yojana are being revamped to include animal damage as a ground for insurance payouts,,” the official said.
Recently, during a visit to Assam, agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan flagged this as a “legitimate and just demand” by farmers.
The PMFBY provides for comprehensive risk insurance against crop damage due to non-preventable natural risks from pre-sowing to post-harvest for crops and areas notified by the state governments.
States will now be allowed to notify losses caused by wild animals on individual assessment, as add on cover under the scheme.
The Union cabinet on January 1 approved an extension to the PMFBY and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme till 2025-26 with an overall outlay of ₹69,515.71 crore.
Launched in June 2016, the PMFBY replaced a web of complicated, multiple farm insurance schemes, all running simultaneously, with a single countrywide plan.
The government has already moved to advanced digital technologies developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation to assess crop damage and yield losses to speed up settlements. The YES-TECH application is being trialled in eight states before it is standardised for the PMFBY by the Mahalanobis National Crop Forecasting Centre.
Part of a tech fund sanctioned by the Cabinet will also go toward expanding app-based enrolments of farmers for PMFBY, a practice started from last year’s kharif or summer-sown season.
Source - https://www.hindustantimes.com
