Farmers in Maharashtra availing crop loans from banks but not buying insurance under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojan (PMFBY) for Rabi season will have to mandatorily declare to the banks that they have opted out of the insurance cover, sources said.

Farmers are not buying insurance because they feel that buying a cover and paying insurance premium is a waste of money, sources said. According to the farmers in spite of their crops getting destroyed due to unfavourable weather or pest attacks their claims will never get settled. So they prefer to opt out of insurance cover, and save their money.

Industry sources said that in the kharif season about 60 lakh farmers availed of the PMFBY insurance, while in the rabi season about 30 lakh farmers are expected to sign up for the scheme. The kharif and rabi numbers add up to 90 lakh farmers, but the total number of farmers in Maharashtra is about 1.5 crore. That means, a large chunk of farmers are still not taking insurance cover or the insurance companies have not reached out to them.

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Insurance companies, instead of reaching out far and wide into the rural hinterland, .focus their efforts on those areas where they are confident of getting business. At times, farmers are also unaware of the fact that for every season they need to freshly enrol for the PMFBY scheme, sources said.

In a district such as Latur, there were 50,000 claims of crop damage due to untimely rains in September. But again their post-harvest crops got damaged by October 14 and 15 due to heavy rains. For such severe crop damage, the farmers are eligible to get up to 100 per cent of the sum assured.

However, there is such poor understanding of insurance products that after the September rains, the farmers in Latur did not file for fresh damage claims in October; the number of claims with insurance companies stood at a paltry 5,000, whereas these should have actually crossed 50,000.

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Former Chairman of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission and farmer leader Pasha Patel said that those farmers who are not buying insurance are committing a mistake. Extreme weather events are increasing due to climate change. This negative mentality should change, he said.

At the time of going to press, the Agriculture Secretary of Maharashtra was not available for comments.

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