What crop insurance? India's farmers have no clue about the covers Centre doles out for them

Despite the government talking so much about the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana benefiting India's farmers, most of them have not even heard of any crop insurance scheme by the Centre.

About 67% of the 6,000 farmers surveyed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India ( CAG) had absolutely no idea about government-run crop insurance schemes.

CAG's report dealt with crop insurance schemes from 2011 to 2015, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious and much-publicised Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), though it started in January 2016.

Even the coverage of farmers, particularly small and marginal ones, under the insurance schemes was very low compared to the population of farmers as per Census 2011, the report said.

The CAG also pointed out that the state-owned Agricultural Insurance Company of India failed to exercise due diligence in verification of claims by private insurance companies before releasing funds.

According to the report, there were discrepancies in the data relating to area sown and area insured. "The integrity of the data provided by the state governments in this respect and used by AIC was not ensured."

"The discrepancy in insured area in excess of sown area indicates that while collecting premium from the farmers by the Bank/FIs it was not ensured that the farmers had actually sown the declared crops for which they availed the crop loan implying thereby that at least some insurance was for the loan and not for the crop. This could also result in payment of claims twice or thrice for same crop during same season," the report said.

The CAG report also found instances of delayed release of funds by state governments. "Such delays impacted the release of insurance compensation to affected farmers, defeating the objective of providing timely financial assistance to the farming community," the report added.