JOIN USThe Modi government decided to resurrect a farm income insurance scheme first mooted in the final days of the Vajpayee government.
The National Farm Income Insurance Scheme (NFIIS) aims to protect farmers’ income against production and price risks.
“The scheme was first mooted by Rajnath Singh during his tenure as agriculture minister in the Vajpayee government. But the scheme never took off due to change in the government at the Centre,” Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh told reporters here.
The NFIIS has been designed to address both crop yield risk as well as price risk to stabilise farmers’ incomes. As per NFIIS, farmers would be eligible to claim compensation if their actual income falls short of guaranteed income. The guaranteed income is calculated as average yield multiplied by minimum support price for the crop taken.
The Centre is also mulling over giving states the freedom to devise their own agriculture insurance schemes taking into consideration regional factors.
The Modi government plans were discussed at a meeting of agriculture ministers and representatives from 20 states. Interestingly, the move found support from the Congress-ruled Uttarakhand as well as other states.