The government has taken several measures to make the PM Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) more meaningful for farmers. During five years of the scheme’s existence, farmers were given around ₹90,000 crore in claims, siad Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday.

“The scheme is a milestone crop insurance scheme covering full crop cycle against the losses occurring due to non-preventable natural risk. The scheme was fully operational during the Covid-19 lockdown, distributing claims of over ₹8741.3 crore to 69.70 lakh farmers across India,” Tomar said during a virtual interaction with PMFBY stakeholders to mark completion of five years of the flagship crop insurance scheme.

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Addressing challenges

Making a presentation on the scheme, PMFBY’s CEO, Ashish Bhutani, said there were some challenges in implementing the scheme, but most of them were addressed through steps taken with consultation with stakeholders involved.

He said that a number of modifications have been made to improve the scheme. These include making the scheme voluntary for farmers, allowing insurance companies to operate in a cluster for three years prompting them to invest in infrastructure, not allowing defaulting States to implement the scheme in subsequent cropping seasons, as well as using an improved two-step process of yield estimation.

Addressing the meeting which was attended by 150 representatives including officials of the State governments, banks and insurance companies, Tomar said that there is a need to raise awareness about PMFBY so that many more farmers can take advantage of the scheme. The scheme plans to integrate farmers’ land records with the PMFBY portal and use satellite imagery and remote-sensing technology for improving monitoring and to claim settlements.

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