The government has paid crop insurance claims worth Rs 9,046 crore to 80 lakh farmers for the 2018 Kharif season under various schemes, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

The government currently offers two crop insurance schemes namely the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and the Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS).

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that Rs 9,046 crore worth claims have been paid to 80 lakh farmers under PMFBY and weather-index based RWBCIS for the 2018 kharif season. He said this was a provisional data and some claims of the said season have not been reported.

“Admissible claims under PMFBY are worked out on the basis of yield data submitted by the state government concerned and under RWBCIS on the basis of weather data from weather stations designated in the notification by the state government,” he said.

PMFBY was launched in 2016 under which farmers pay very nominal premium and get full claim for damages. The scheme is being implemented in most of the states.

When asked if the government had a proposal to take steps to provide compensation to farmers for crop loss under PMFBY by determining a year in which farmers got bumper crops, the Minister said, “no such proposal is under consideration of the government at present.”

However, the government has revised the operational guidelines of PMFBY from Rabi 2018-19 season and rationalised the methodology for calculating the threshold year where average yield data of best five out of seven years are considered for calculation of claim amount, he said.

The insurance unit for calculation of admissible claims has also been reduced to village/village panchayat level to provide claims proportionate to their crop yield damage, he added.

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