Jharkhand Launches ‘Kisan Fasal Rahat Yojana’ – Crop Relief Scheme

Jharkhand has launched the state’s own crop relief scheme ‘Kisan Fasal Rahat Yojana’ which will replace Government of India’s crop insurance scheme Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). The new scheme is a compensation scheme which will provide security cover to farmers of Jharkhand in cases of crop damage due to natural hazards.

i.Department of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry & Co-operative, Jharkhand will be the implementing agency of the scheme.

ii.The main objectives of the scheme are – Food Safety, Crop Diversification, rapid development in Agriculture & paving way for competition.

iii.Jharkhand being a single crop (Paddy) state, the scheme will target farmers who grow paddy.

Key Points:

i.It will cover both land owning & landless farmers, no premium needs to be paid in the scheme.

ii.Crop damage will be assessed through direct observations (includes sample observations), in case of post-harvest damage assessment will be done on the basis of sighting. Gram Sabha will also play an important role in reporting of damaged crops by farmers.

iii.Compensation – from 0.1-5 acre of land, compensation ranges from INR 3000-3500/acre depending upon the loss.

Reasons for replacing PMFBY:

i.In PMFBY, the State Government has to pay a huge amount to insurance companies as Premium.

ii.In the last 3 years (2017-20), Jharkhand has paid INR 512.55, whereas the compensation claim settlement paid to farmers was only INR 82.86 crore, which was only 16% of the total premium.

iii.The number of farmers being benefited compared to actual cover is also hugely disproportionate.

iv.So, the Jharkhand government has decided to introduce its own crop relief scheme in which instead of paying huge amounts as premium to insurance companies they can use the amount to directly compensate the farmers.