PRADHAN MANTRI FASAL BIMA YOJANA

                                   (PMFBY)

India is an agrarian economy where the farmers become the soul contributor to the economy. Thus to boost this sector of our country the government came up with a new initiative.

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) is a central crop insurance scheme launched on 18 February 2016 by honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is an insurance scheme for farmers to improve their yields.

It is a central scheme administered by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. This scheme is in association with One Nation – One Scheme theme. It is designed to replace the existing two scheme National Agriculture Insurance Scheme and Modified NAIS.

PREMIUM:

This scheme conceives of a uniform premium of only 2% to be paid by farmers for Kharif crops and a premium of 1.5% for Rabi crops. A premium of 5% is to be paid by the farmers for annual commercial and horticultural crops.

OBJECTIVES:

·         This scheme aims at providing insurance coverage and financial assistance to the farmers on the account of failure of notified crops due to any natural calamities and others.

·         Farmers’ income stability.

·         Encouraging the farmers to adopt innovative and scientific techniques to improve the yield.

·         Flow of credit to the agricultural sector to be ensured.

·         Ensuring food security and crop diversification.

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY:

The insurance scheme shall be implemented through network of selected insurance companies under the guidance of Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare (DAC&FW), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW) and Government of India with the concerned state.

COVERAGE OF FARMERS AND CROPS:

The crops covered under the scheme are: –

Ø  Oil seeds

Ø  Food crop

Ø  Annual commercial / Annual Horticultural crops

The farmers covered under the scheme are: –

Compulsory coverage: The scheme made mandatory for farmers who have taken institutional loans from banks. This covers the farmers under crop loan and Kisan Credit Card holders.

Voluntary coverage:  Those farmers who didn’t have an institutional loan were made totally optional under this scheme.

WHY IN NEWS RECENTLY?

Lately, the renovation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and the Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) has been approved by the union parliament.

KEY CHANGES: —

v  Reduction in the share of the centre

§  It brings out a significant reduction in the premium share of the center from 50% to 25% for irrigated areas and 30% for the unirrigated areas.

§  The new scheme reduced the burden of the center and increased on the part of the states.

v  Voluntary enrollment

§  Registering under the scheme is being made voluntary for all the farmers, including the farmers with existing crop loan.

§  Previously it was mandatory for all farmers having crop loans.

v  Cut-offs dates to release share (for states)

§  The revamp came up with a new initiative of introducing the cut-offs dates for releasing share of premium subsidy.

§  If the states do not release the dates for Kharif crops before March 31 and for Rabi crops before September 30, then the states won’t be allowed to implement the premium share.

v  Insurance company’s compulsory serving time period

§  The insurance companies are made compulsorily operational for 3 years for a state.

§  Currently the tender was in the format of one-year, two-year or three-year.

The PMFBY can be boosting way to our agricultural sector and even help the farmers in stabilizing their income. It can improve the annual yield by implementing modern and scientific techniques and insuring farmers income, the backbone of our economy.

SOURCES :

• Wikipedia
• PIB
• Drishti IAS
• PMFBY portal

-PALLAVI MOHAPATRA