Assessment of Crop Insurance in India through 4Cs: Cost, Coverage, Compensation and Crop Loss

Government has always taken care of farmer’s welfare through policy intervention on agriculture. In fact, recently the entire agricultural policy was concentrated around the farmer’s welfare of the country. There are many challenges but the biggest challenge facing India is to ensure the protection of agricultural produce of farmers against risks and uncertainty. The reason is obvious as more than half Indian population is engaged in agricultural sector for their livelihood. The recent decision of Government to introduce Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana is key intervention to minimise the risk of crop failure. As we all are aware, Indian agricultural system is diverse, complex and faces multiple problems specially related to crop insurance. The first problem relates to coverage and premium paid for the particular crop. Secondly the financial loss of the crop failure and the third problem is compensation of crop loss. Compensation relates to both timeliness as well as amounts. In this paper, an attempt has been made to address the above issues at all India level with the help of unit level data on Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households in India collected by National Sample Survey Office during 70th Round (January – December 2013).