Context

The Central Government’s flagship crop insurance scheme - the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) has successfully completed 5 years of its operation.

About

What is PMFBY?

• The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna was launched in 2016.
• PMFBY provides a comprehensive insurance cover against failure of the crop thus helping in stabilising the income of the farmers.
• Coverage: The Scheme covers all Food & Oilseeds crops and Annual Commercial/Horticultural Crops for which past yield data is available and for which requisite number of Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) are conductedbeing under General Crop Estimation Survey (GCES).
• Under the scheme, the premium cost over and above the farmer share is equally subsidized by the Centre and States. The average sum insured per hectare has increased from Rs 15,100 during the pre-PMFBY Schemes to Rs 40,700 under the PMFBY.
• Implementation: The scheme is implemented by empanelled general insurance companies.
  • Selection of Implementing Agency (IA) is done by the concerned State Government through bidding. The scheme is compulsory for loanee farmers availing Crop Loan /KCC account for notified crops and voluntary for other others.
• Administered by: The scheme is being administered by Ministry of Agriculture.
• The scheme was made voluntary for all farmers, after its revamp in February 2020.

The progress so far

• As per the Government data, claims worth Rs 90,000 crore have so far been disbursed to farmers since the launch of the scheme on January 13, 2016.
• So far, 29 crore farmers have insured their crops under the scheme and about 5.5 crores new farmers are getting registered every year.
• Even during the COVID-19 lockdown period, nearly 70 lakh farmers benefitted and claims worth Rs 8,741.30 crore were transferred to the beneficiaries.