Analysis of Awareness Level of Agricultural Insurance among the Stakeholders in Punjab

The flagship program Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was launched on 13th January 2016 that aims to improve the productivity and earnings of farmers and Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) aims to mitigate the hardship of the insured farmers against the likelihood of financial loss on account of anticipated crop loss resulting from adverse weather conditions which was restructured and launched by GOI in March, 2016. Both the schemes PMFBY & MWBCIS have not been implemented in the state of Punjab but there have been wide publicity of both the schemes at district level camps organised by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Keeping in view this study analyses the awareness level of these two schemes were among the three stakeholders viz; scientists, extensionists and farmers. Majority of the scientists aware about of the features of PMFBY& WBCIS like coverage of crop, risk coverage whereas less aware about the post-harvest coverage losses. Only 37 percent of scientists were aware about the insurance unit to be village panchayat where as 28 percent of scientists were aware that the sum insured in same for loanee and non loanee farmers and similar trend of awareness was also found for the extensionists. Almost more than half of the progressive farmers were aware regarding the various aspects of PMFBY. There is a need to make the famers aware about crop/weather insurance through awareness programme. Insurance education can be incorporated into various training programmes organized on risk management