The government has extended the cut-off date for enrolment of farmers under the revamped Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) for kharif 2023 up to August 16, 2023 across 15 states and union territories due delay issuing notification as well as application of new technologies.
According to an official communication, states, including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, who had original enrolment date for farmers till Monday has been extended by few days to a fortnight for allowing more coverage of crop insurance.
In Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the date of enrolment has been extended till August 10. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the new enrolment date is August 16, according to a communication.
Farmers in Maharashtra and Odisha can enroll in PMFBY by Thursday and Saturday.
So far, 12.5 million farmers have enrolled under PMFBY in the current kharif season against 17.9 million farmers in 2022.
The new guidelines issued earlier for PMFBY aims to “universalise” the scheme, with measures including digitised land records, farm level season-wise crop data, farm-level farmer’s KYC and application programme interface (API) based data exchange.
Thrust on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) based technologies for timely assessment of crop yield data and resultant quicker claim settlement will be the other key features of the renewed crop insurance scheme.
The claim-premium ratio which was 99% in 2018-19 has declined to 65% in 2021-22; the claims for FY22 are still being settled.
Since the launch of the PMFBY in Kharif 2016, the gross premium collected has been around Rs 1.7 trillion till the end of FY22, against reported claims of `1.33 trillion. During 2016-17-2021-22, Rs 25,181 crore have been paid by farmers as the premium, while the balance was paid by the government.
Under PMFBY, 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. 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 government has allocated `13,625 crore for implementation of PMFBY in 2023-24