Fasal Bima - Crop insurance
Today's big news is rolling out of Crop insurance scheme for farmers with as low premium as 1.5 to 2%. It is great considering around 300,000 farmers have committed suicide in India according to Guardian. Of course these foreigners always try to paint us in bad light. But still.
And things this year are worse. Because of drought and unseasonal rain and floods in some areas.
So the yojana seems to be a good solution. But is it really? We have had crop insurance earlier. But only around 23% farmers used the scheme. The reason is not difficult to fathom. Farmers who are illiterate or semi-literate will not even know about the existence of such a scheme. No call center people will call them asking them to apply for fasal bima. And there are no advertisements in TV either. Even if a farmer insures his crop, by the time he proves the failure of his crop and gets the insured money he would have gone up - where he will not have to worry about rains and crops.
Most often these schemes benefit the rich farmers with hundreds of acres of land. They will have people inform them about the schemes, people who tell them where to pay the bribe to get the money etc.
And as I read in Live mint, if the crop is insured, farmers go for cash crops which depend on the rains. Ironic.
Our aam kisan who has just enough land to survive, but has loans to last till his great grand children, still suffers from drought, flood, abysmal price for his crop and everything else. And some times thinks only death will save him.
But let us be optimistic. Let us try to spread the word. (By writing in blog in ENGLISH :) ). Shall we hope that Vidya Balan will tell us all, including farmers everyday, about fasal bima yojana and why should one go for it?
Today's big news is rolling out of Crop insurance scheme for farmers with as low premium as 1.5 to 2%. It is great considering around 300,000 farmers have committed suicide in India according to Guardian. Of course these foreigners always try to paint us in bad light. But still.
And things this year are worse. Because of drought and unseasonal rain and floods in some areas.
So the yojana seems to be a good solution. But is it really? We have had crop insurance earlier. But only around 23% farmers used the scheme. The reason is not difficult to fathom. Farmers who are illiterate or semi-literate will not even know about the existence of such a scheme. No call center people will call them asking them to apply for fasal bima. And there are no advertisements in TV either. Even if a farmer insures his crop, by the time he proves the failure of his crop and gets the insured money he would have gone up - where he will not have to worry about rains and crops.
Most often these schemes benefit the rich farmers with hundreds of acres of land. They will have people inform them about the schemes, people who tell them where to pay the bribe to get the money etc.
And as I read in Live mint, if the crop is insured, farmers go for cash crops which depend on the rains. Ironic.
Our aam kisan who has just enough land to survive, but has loans to last till his great grand children, still suffers from drought, flood, abysmal price for his crop and everything else. And some times thinks only death will save him.
But let us be optimistic. Let us try to spread the word. (By writing in blog in ENGLISH :) ). Shall we hope that Vidya Balan will tell us all, including farmers everyday, about fasal bima yojana and why should one go for it?
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