About:
- The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) was launched in 2016 to provide a comprehensive insurance cover against failure of the crop thus helping in stabilising the income of the farmers.
- The Scheme covers all Food & Oilseeds crops and Annual Commercial/Horticultural Crops for which past yield data is available and for which requisite number of Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) are being conducted under General Crop Estimation Survey (GCES).
- The scheme is being administered by Ministry of Agriculture and is implemented by empanelled general insurance companies.
New Operational Guidelines:
In September 2018, Union Government issued new operational guidelines for implementation of PMFBY –
- Performance evaluation of insurance companies has been made stringent. States and Insurance Companies to be penalised for the delay in settlement of insurance claims under PMFBY.
- Perennial horticultural crops included under the ambit of PMFBY on a pilot basis.
- Add on coverage for crop loss due to attack of wild animals, will be implemented on a pilot basis.
- Aadhaar number will be mandatorily captured to avoid duplication of beneficiaries.
- To insure more non-loanee farmers under the scheme, the insurance companies are given a target of enrolling 10% more non-loanee farmers than the previous corresponding season.
- The insurance companies will have to mandatorily spend 0.5% of gross premium per company per season for publicity and awareness of the scheme.
- Rationalization of premium release process has been incorporated in the new guidelines. As per this, the insurance companies need not provide any projections for the advance subsidy.
