As efforts have been intensified for enrolling farmers under the first-of-its-kind insurance scheme, the State government is anticipating that the number of eligible farmers could be around 40 lakh.
The government has announced the scheme aimed at providing ₹5 lakh insurance cover to farmers in addition to putting in place investment support scheme with an estimated expenditure of ₹12,000 crore every year. The government has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the public sector undertaking Life Insurance Corporation of India as the sole insurer under the scheme.
The LIC will accordingly issue a group master policy in the name of the State government which has agreed to bear the premium of ₹2,271 per farmer to all eligible farmers. Senior officials said the scheme is expected to cover close to 40 lakh out of the 57.4 lakh farmers who have been identified on the basis of updation of land records entailing an outgo of little over ₹900 crore a year to the government. The government has, however, decided to make a budget provision of ₹1,000 crore keeping in view the likely enrolment of new names under the scheme.
The figure was arrived at after factoring in the age ceiling which had been fixed between 18 and 59 and the uniformity in payment of premium on account of the scheme being a group insurance scheme.
The number would come down significantly after removing farmers above 60 and those owning lands aged below 18 years. In addition, Aadhaar linkage to the scheme will ensure that farmers with multiple accounts did not enrol themselves for the scheme at different places.
The guidelines issued by the government mandate that farmers with multiple accounts due to lands spread over different villages should chose only one account under which he prefers to be insured and Aadhaar number would be used to avoid duplication of the PPBs to ensure that only a single certificate was issued. “There are also land owners who settled down at places outside the State and NRIs holding lands in the State who are unlikely to opt for the insurance cover,” a senior official said.
