Crop insurers made ₹10k-crore profit amid agrarian crisis: CSE

NEWDELHI: An independent evaluation of the Modi government’s much-touted crop insurance scheme has showed that insurers gained nearly ₹10,000 crore in gross profit during the last kharif season, from June to November 2016.

However, it settled less than a third of the crop-loss claims filed till early this year.

The report released on Friday by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) showed state-level “implementation gaps” in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), which replaced the previous National Agricultural Insurance Scheme in April 2016. These discrepancies could negate the benefits accorded by the scheme to farmers, the nonprofit think tank said. The CSE report cited state-wise data from the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare to show that insurance companies had only settled 32.45% of the claims made till April 2017. While farmers raised claims for nearly ₹6,000 crore, they were paid less than ₹2,000 crore. Citing data from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, the CSE pointed out that insurance companies grossed more than ₹15,891 crore in premiums.

The claims amounted to a little over ₹5,962 crore. Of this, less than a third was paid out. “Data released by the IRDAI indicates that the PMFBY played a significant role in the non-life insurance industry in financial year 2016-17,” the report added.

However, insurance companies contended that the gap between the premium collected and the claims processed will go down as the scheme covers more farmers. “Kharif 2016 was a good period for agriculture.

There was undoubtedly a surplus this time, but it’s like a reserve for the future. Claim settlements are still on,” said Ajay Singhal, deputy general manager at the Agriculture Insurance Company of India.

The premium for crop insurance under the government scheme is heavily subsidised, with the Centre and state governments pitching in to share subsidy costs. However, the think tank’s findings suggested that state governments – in several instances – wanted to keep their outflows low.

While the state government’s share of the premium for the 2016 kharif season was ₹650 crore in Bihar, about a quarter of its annual agricultural budget, Madhya Pradesh paid nearly ₹1,500 crore, which is 60% of its annual budget. “The economics of poor states does not allow for a 50-50 sharing formula with the Centre. The government should come up with a graded subsidysharing arrangement,” said Chandra Bhushan of the CSE.

Though the report described the PMFBY as “a classic case of poor implementation of a good scheme”, it also mentioned a few positives that arose through the central initiative. Foremost among them was the fact that farmer coverage had crossed four crore, a gain of nearly 25% over the previous year. The PMFBY narrows the gap between the actual cost of production and the sum insured, a major impediment faced by farmers in previous versions of the insurance scheme.