India: Farmers still unaware of PMFBY details: survey

• Farmers are still unaware of the details of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana (PMFBY) even as the government and insurers are trying to increasing the penetration in the non-loanee segment, said a climate risk management firm WRMS.
• However, in many states, high satisfaction has been seen among the enrolled farmers and reasons for the same were proper implementation in terms of assistance to farmers and involvement of insurance company and high percentage of insured farmers receiving payout, it said.
• The PMFBY, launched in 2016, is the most important tool today to insure agriculture against climate and other risks. The scheme which is an improvement over the previous agriculture insurance schemes not only provides subsidised insurance to the loanee farmers but also avails it to the non-loanee farmers.
• “In a recent survey done in eight states (Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, AP, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland, Bihar and Maharashtra) by BASIX, it was found that only 28.7% of the sampled farmers are aware about the PMFBY,” the Weather Risk Management Services Pvt Ltd (WRMS) said.
• As per the survey findings, farmers complain that the process for enrolment as non-loanee farmers is difficult. They have to obtain sowing certificates, land records from the local revenue department which is time consuming.
• Further, the bank branches and customer service centres are not always available for enrolment as they are pre-occupied with other works, it showed.
• According to the survey, 40.8% gathered information from formal sources like agriculture department, insurance companies or customer service centres and rest were informed by specific channels creating awareness.
• From those who were aware of the scheme only 12.9% could get their crop insured of which 77% were linked to loan.
• “41.3% of the farmers cited lack of necessary documents as the major challenge to get insurance and the other challenges were small land holdings (21.4%), lack of assistance from government officials (26%) and inefficiency of online systems (17.3%),” the WRMS said about the findings of the survey.
• Emphasising the need to enhance awareness among non-loanee farmers, the WRMS suggested that simple platforms need to be built to help farmers apply for the scheme and at the same time get details on the risks covered in the scheme and how they can inform about their localised losses.

External Link: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/agriculture/farmers-still-unaware-of-details-of-pmfby-survey/articleshow/65472194.cms