PradhanMantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)
Why in the News?
Ministry launched National Crop Insurance Portal’s digitized claim settlement module namely Digiclaim under the ambit of PMFBY.
Quick Facts
Purpose: Comprehensive crop insurance from pre-sowing to post-harvest period
Type: Centrally Sponsored Scheme
Nature: Demand driven scheme and is voluntary for the States as well as farmers
Beneficiaries: All farmers including sharecroppers and tenant farmers
Objective
Financial support to farmers suffering crop loss/ damage, stabilizing their income and ensuring flow of credit to the agriculture sector.
Adoption of innovative & modern agricultural practices and crop diversification.
Salient Features
Background:
PMFBY Replaced the National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) and Modified NAIS.
However, the Restructured Weather-Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) is still continued.
RWBCIS uses weather parameters as “proxy” for crop yields in compensating the cultivators for deemed crop losses.
Crops covered for rabi and kharif:
All cereals, millets, pulses, and Oilseeds.
Premium paid:
Premium is paid as % of the sum assured or Actuarial Premium Rate (APR), whichever is less.
nsured sum of crops:
Crops with MSP: States/UTs can either choose a scale of finance or districtlevel value of notional average yield at MSP.
Crops without MSP: Farm gate price will be considered.
Coverage of risk and exclusion:
Basic Coverage (mandatory):
Yield losses (sowing to harvesting) due to nonpreventable risks like drought, dry spells, flood, inundation, etc.
Add-On Coverage (Discretion of states): Coverage for Prevented Sowing/ Planting/ Germination Risk, etc.
General Exclusions: Losses arising out of war and nuclear risks, malicious damage, and other preventable risks.
Other provisions :
Area Approach basis i.e., all the farmers in ‘Insurance Unit (IU)’ face similar risks. Aadhaar mandatory. States can set up their own insurance companies.
Allocation of business to Insurance Companies to for 3 years.
Steps taken to Increase Coverage:
Increase in tenure to 3 years for selection of insurance company through bidding process;
Introduction of three alternative risk models viz. Profit and Loss Sharing,
Cup and Cap (60-130),
Cup and Cap (80-110)
under which if no claim is made then a portion of the premium paid by the state will go into the state treasury itself CROPIC (Collection of Real Time Observations and Photo of Crops)
Other Key Initiatives under PMFBY
DigiClaim:
Under DigiClaim all the claims are worked out through National Crop Insurance Portal (NCIP) instead of insurance company
and paid to farmers accounts using Public Finance Management System (PFMS),
monitored by Central and State Government.
Farmers do not operate the DigiClaim module and only GoI & State Govt. functionaries have access to it.
However, on settlement of claims,
Weather Information Network Data Systems (WINDS) portal:
A centralized platform processes hyper-local weather data from Automatic Weather Stations and Rain Gauges at various levels, improving risk assessment and decision-making.
Yield Estimation System, based on Technology (YES-TECH) Manual:
A tech-driven yield estimation system providing methods, best practices, and integration insights for precise yield assessments at the Gram Panchayat level.
Door to Door enrollment app AIDE/Sahayak:
Aims to enhance the accessibility of the scheme. Forecasting Agricultural output using Space, Agro- meteorology and Land based observations (FASAL) project.
National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGPA) for timely access to agriculture related information through ICT use.
National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS) for Agricultural drought assessment. ISRO’s Geo-platform, Bhuvan, provides data on plantation, pest surveillance and weather.
