Crop insurance flaws

PM's flagship scheme needs an urgent reboot

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done well to respond to criticism over his government’s flagship farm insurance scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), and ask the NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog to suggest ways to improve it. The scheme was launched in April 2016 and has been criticised for benefitting insurance companies instead of farmers by allowing them to pocket the bulk of the premium along with hefty subsidies. The total payout by way of claims has been just around one-fourth of the premium collected by the insurers. In the past, both the Centre for Science