The enrollment of farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) has crossed a record 40 million in 2023-24, an increase of 27% from the 31.5 million enrolled in FY23, an agriculture ministry official said.
An official said that 42% of farmers who would enroll under the crop insurance are those who had not availed loans from the banks.
In 2022-23, out of 31.5 million farmers enrolled, 39% were non-loanee farmers.
“The crop insurance scheme is gradually moving towards a subscription-based model rather than a loan-based scheme,” Ritesh Chauhan, CEO,PMFBY had earlier said.
In terms of area, coverage of heavily-subsidised crop insurance scheme has crossed 60 million hectare in 2023-24, which is an increase of around 21% from FY23.
According to an agriculture ministry statement, since the launch of PMFBY in 2016, `31,139 crore was paid by farmers as their share of premium, against which claims of around `1.56 trillion have been paid to them.
“For every `100 of premium paid by farmers, they have received about `500 as claims,” it noted.
Under the PMFBY, which is currently being implemented in 22 states and union territories, the premium to be paid by farmers is fixed at just 1.5% of the sum insured for rabi crops and 2% for kharif crops, while it is 5% for cash crops.
Meanwhile, Telangana, which had exited the crop insurance after implementing it during 2016-2020, has recently decided to implement the PMFBY from the next kharif season. The Jharkhand government is discussing rejoining the crop insurance at the earliest.
Earlier, states like Gujarat, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar exited the scheme, because of ‘higher cost of premium subsidy’ to be borne by them.
It is optional for the farmers to opt for PMFBY.
The balance premium is equally shared amongst the Centre and states and in case of North-Eastern states, the premium is split between the Centre and states in a 9:1 ratio.
The claim-premium ratio, which was 99% in 2018-19, has declined to 68.7% in 2021-22. Last fiscal, the ratio was 76.7%.
Under PMFBY, the finance ministry has made a provision of `15,000 crore for FY25, while as per the revised estimate, `14,600 crore has been provided for the crop insurance scheme.
The official said many states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Meghalaya and Puducherry have opted for universalisation of crop insurance scheme which implies that the state government bears the cost farmers’ premium.
Several insurance companies, both in the public and private sectors, are implementing crop insurance launched in 2016.
The agriculture ministry has stated that the PMFBY, which is the third largest insurance scheme globally in terms of premium, shields farmers from crop loss or damage arising out of unforeseen events.
