India (Commonwealth Union)_ SBI General, one of the top general insurance providers in India, has commenced its fourth Crop Insurance Week Awareness Campaign for the forthcoming Rabi season. Accordingly, the company will educate farmers about the PMFBY Scheme’s features, i.e., the significance and value of crop insurance schemes, the prevention of sowing/planting risks, and the protection it provides for standing crops, through a range of on-site activities, such as workshops, training and educational programs.
Under the campaign, SBI General will organize these operations in the states of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Assam, and Karnataka. These states have been assigned to them under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and the Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS). In the previous fiscal year, the SBI General Insurance Company covered more than 9,385,000 farmers from the states of Rajasthan, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Assam as part of the PMFBY Scheme. Over the years, SBIG has insured over 2.79 crore farmers and paid out more than INR 7,220 crore in claims. Further, the general insurer will give coverage for a variety of crops throughout the Rabi season, including tomatoes, potatoes, mangoes, pomegranate, chili, grape, wheat, barley, gram, masoor, cumin, fenugreek, mustard, malta, orange, peach, and litchi.
According to Priya Kumar, Head of Emerging Business Lines, Rural & Agri, at SBI General Insurance, climate change, particularly in recent years, has been a major hindrance to food security, impacting food production and related costs. Moreover, agriculture has become extremely fragile due to the challenges of natural disasters, reliance on big rain-fed regions, pests, and disease. Hence, PMFBY is the remedy to all of the hazards confronted by farmers. “On this momentous occasion of the 4th Crop Insurance Awareness Week, SBIG would like to send a message to all our farmers to enroll into the scheme and protect themselves from any unforeseen financial losses that may occur to their crops due to weather vagaries,” she added.
