Abstract

 In recent years, in many parts of the country, indebtedness, crop failures, unpaid prices and poor returns have resulted in agrarian distress. The government has identified and introduced several programs to address these critical issues viz. crop insurance, lending waivers etc. among them. Crop insurance as a concept for risk management in agriculture has emerged in India since the turn of the twentieth century and government has launched various insurance schemes in last three decades like Comprehensive Crop Insurance Scheme (CCIS), National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) and Modified NAIS (MNAIS) etc. Apart from these schemes, several other pilot projects such as Seed Crop Insurance, Farm Income Insurance Scheme and Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) were implemented from time to time. At present, two most important schemes are functional i.e. Pradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojna (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) are in operation. This study focused on the performance of the Restructured Weather based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) from historical and analytical perspectives and presents recommendation for future scenarios. RWBCIS scheme having two most important challenges. Firstly, weather data related issues by designing a modern scientific approach to develop high resolution secondary data and secondly, modifying the existing design of RWBCIS Products, based on sound agronomic principles.
Highlights
Agriculture, with its allied sectors, is unquestionably are highly dependent on weather conditions, any weather aberrations cause atmospheric and other forms of stresses and in turn, will increase the vulnerability of these farmers to economic losses (Srinivasarao et al, 2016; Bal and Minhas, 2017)
Two most relevant systems have been operational in the recent past, i.e. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) based on restructured weather
The PMFBY provide insurance coverage and financial support to the farmers in the event of failure of any of the notified crop as a result of natural calamities, pests & diseases whereas the RWBCIS aims to mitigate the hardship of the insured farmers against the likelihood of financial loss on account of crop loss resulting from adverse weather conditions using weather parameters as “proxy for crop yields in compensating the cultivators for deemed crop losses
Summary
Individual Approach Scheme was launched in 1971-1978. The scheme was launched by General Insurance Corporation (GIC) of India on a limited, ad-hoc and scattered scale for cotton and later included groundnut, wheat and potato in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal covering 3,110 farmers for a premium of Rs.4.54 lakh against claims of a massive Rs.37.88 lakh. The scheme was focused on the homogenous area approach’ and adopted by 15 States and 2 Union Territories (UTs) covering 763 lakh farmers for a premium of Rs 4.04 crore against claims of Rs. 2,303 crore. The govt launched the scheme aimed to protect the farmers against the crop losses suffered on account of natural calamities, such as drought, flood, hailstorm, cyclone, pests and diseases It was implemented by the Agriculture Insurance Company of India Ltd. It was extended to West Bengal and continues during 2017-18 and 2018-19 to be under implementation It has been administered by the Coconut Development Board (CDB).Since inception of the scheme 57.25 lakh palms of 1.24 lakh growers for a sum insured of Rs. 506 crore have been covered. The risk period is notified by the SLCCCI (State Level Co-Ordination Committee on Crop Insurance) before the commencement of risk period
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