Why in news?
Jharkhand is going to replace PM’s crop insurance scheme for farmers with its own crop relief scheme.
What is Jharkhand’s Kisan Fasal Rahat Yojana?
- It is a compensation scheme which provides security cover to farmers for the damaged crops occurring due to natural calamity.
- The main aim of the scheme is food safety, crop diversification, rapid agriculture development paving way for competition.
- The scheme will cover both land owning and landless farmers.
- The Department of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Co-operative will be the implementing agency.
- The department will work in association with project management unit which will take care of technical requirements.
- But it is not an insurance scheme where premiums are paid.
How many farmers does Jharkhand have?
- In Jharkhand, 38 lakh farmers cultivate 38 lakh hectares of land.
- Among them around 25 lakh farmers are small or marginal landholders.
How is the rainfall situation there?
- Irregular monsoon has affected the Kharif sowing season.
- In the last 3 years (2017-19), the average rainfall in the monsoon season was much less and it stood at 13%, -27.8%, -20.9%’ respectively.
- Drought is also a serious concern in the state.
- In 2018, 129 blocks were drought-affected while in 2019 it was 107.
- But this year adequate rainfall occurred in Jharkhand.
- Jharkhand is mostly a single crop (paddy) state & the scheme will primarily target this group of farmers.
Why Jharkhand want to replace the PM insurance scheme?
- The state pays a large amount as premium to the insurance companies every year.
- In the last 3 years, it has paid a total of Rs 512.55 crore.
- But the compensation claim settlement was only Rs 82.86 crore, which is only 16 % of the total premium.
- There is also huge difference between the numbers of farmers benefited from the scheme when compared to the actual coverage.
- In the last 3 years, out of a total of 33.79 lakh registered farmers, only 2.25 lakh farmers have benefited from the scheme.
- Hence it wants to provide direct compensation to farmers rather than paying to insurance company as premium.
How will the damaged crops be assessed & what will be the compensation amount?
- Crop damage will be assessed through a ground truthing process- which is a combination of sample observations.
- In the case of post-harvest damage, it will be assessed based on sight & coordination committees will be constituted at various levels to do this.
- Gram sabha will initially report on the extent of crop damage based on the information received from the farmers.
- The scheme covers the following categories of natural calamities- floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and other geological processes.
- However, damage due to wild animal attack, preventable risks -unscientific farming by farmers will not be covered.
- The compensation is fixed as- for 0.1- 5 acre of land, compensation of Rs 3000 to Rs 3500 per acre is provided depending upon the loss.
How can the farmer avail this scheme?
- They have to submit their Aadhaar number or submit proof of their nomination for Aadhaar.
- Government will train various volunteers, customer service point operators to help farmers to get registered.
- They can get registered only through online portal by uploading land holding, name & area of the crop sown, bank account number, self-declaration.
- This will be verified by the gram sabha.
- After registration, a code will be sent to the registered mobile number of the farmer.
- But technical barriers might rise during registration process which was seen during the current Kharif procurement season.
- However, officers say monitoring will be done as it is key to implementation.
Source: The Indian Express
