Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Crop Insurance

PRADHAN MANTRI BIMA FASAL YOJANA is a  scheme designed for the insurance of new crops. This scheme has all the best features which are in the previous crop insurance schemes and this scheme also concentrates on the drawbacks, shortcomings of the previous schemes. Schemes such as the National Agricultural Insurance Scheme are replaced by Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.

Need for Crop Insurance

1. The weather conditions are fast changing.  Some say it on global warming and some others say it is natural changes. In India, the weather conditions have become completely unpredictable.
2.  Farmers are losing their crops and money due either due to floods or droughts.
3. Rivers are fast drying up as the rainfall is constantly reduced year after year.
4. People were forced to have borewell even in the delta regions.
5. India is an agricultural country.  70% of the population is dependent on agriculture.
6. Agriculture is the major provider of employment to the masses.
7. It is but natural that agriculture is the major production sector and all other sectors are considered as ancillary sectors.
8. Under these circumstances, crop insurance is one of the most important factors to give a fillip to the agriculture and assurance to the farmer to withstand the losses on account of floods, droughts, etc.
9. Crop insurance has become an important issue, not only because of floods and droughts, but also because of other natural calamities such as viruses to the plantation crops, frost, low yields of the crop, and crop diseases.
10. It has become a natural phenomenon in India that crops are being affected in one part of India or other due to natural calamities that are beyond the control of the human.
11. In India, the land holdings are very small, ranging from 1 acre to 5 acres.  Large farms are very few.

Importance of Crop Insurance

Crop insurance will assure the farmers against any loss due to any crop loss due to natural calamities and assists them in his making good the losses though not fully.  Crop insurance will assure the Financial institutions that they are sure of getting the agricultural loans granted to the farmers. Crop insurance will also help the farmers economically. It will bring down the rural indebtedness. The government will also be benefited as the crop loss to farmers will be borne by the financial institutions.

The developers have been implementing crop insurance schemes in their respective countries.  The reason is that only 4 to 6% of the population is dependent on agriculture in developed nations.  Also, the land holdings are large, ranging from 100 to 1000s of acres.  These are mechanized farms and work like industries.

Keeping all the above in view, the Government of India has come up with a scheme under the name PRADHAN MANTRI BIMA FASAL YOJANA to protect the farmers from loss of crops due to natural calamities.

Read: Agriculture Software Information.

Objectives PMFBY scheme:

1. This scheme works in order to support the farmers financially and provide them with insurance coverage so that it would help them in times when there is any occurrence of natural disasters or when the crop is infected by pests.
2. In order to make the income of the farmers stable so that they would continue with farming as their profession.
3. In order to introduce modern agricultural methods to the farmers and encourage them to use those methods.
4. To make sure that there is a continuous credit flow in the system of agriculture.

Highlights of the scheme:

• PMFBY provides for payment of a uniform premium of only 2% and the premium has to be paid by all the farmers for the crops that are grown in the autumn season.
• During the spring season, however, the uniform premium that has to be paid by all the farmers brought down to 1.5% thereby giving furthermore benefit to farmers.
• The insurance premium to be paid under PMFBY is very less.. And the rest of the premium amount will be paid by the Government.
• The Government did not fix an upper limit for availing the subsidy amount. The balance of the 90% premium will be paid by the Government.
• The previous lacunae in the scheme have been permanently removed, making it easy for the farmers.
• One of the significant benefits of this scheme is that it encourages the farmers to use technology to the maximum extent. The farmers can capture and upload data with regard to cutting crops by using smartphones so that the payment of an insurance claim can be done to the farmers on time.
• PMFBY replaces all the previous crop insurance schemes like NAIS.

Coverage of farmers:

The sharecroppers and tenant farmers who are growing the notified crops in the notified areas are eligible for insurance coverage under this scheme

The farmers must have had an insurable interest in the notified/ insured crops. The non-loanee farmers (farmers who have not availed loans from the financial institutions for Seasonal Agricultural Operations (SAO) are required to submit necessary documentary evidence of land records which are present in the Records of Right in state records, contract details are permitted by the state government which is concerned to tenant farmers.

• Compulsory Component: All the farmers who have loans under Seasonal Agricultural Operations (SAO) loans from the banks or financial bodies for the notified crops which should be covered on a mandatory basis
• Voluntary Component: This Scheme is optional for non-loanee farmers.
• This scheme envisages that special efforts shall be made to ensure maximum coverage of SC/ ST/ Women farmers under the scheme.
• Budget allocation and utilization under these segments should be in the proportion of landholding of SC/ ST/ General along with Women in the respective state/ cluster.

Crops which are covered under this scheme:

• Food crops (Cereals, Millets, and Pulses)
• Oilseeds
•  Annual Commercial / Horticultural crops 

Coverage of Risks and Exclusions

What is covered under the scheme? Well, the below-given stages of the food crop and risks leading to crop yield loss are covered.

• Prevented Sowing/ Planting Risk
• This occurs where farmers could not sow or plant crops due to deficit rainfall or adverse seasonal condition.
• Standing Crop (Sowing to Harvesting):
• Under this scheme, Comprehensive risk insurance is provided to cover yield
• losses in crops because of non-preventable risks like the drought in the area, dry spells of rain, floods, inundation of crops, pests and diseases, landslides,
• natural fire and lightning, storms, hailstorm, cyclone, typhoons, tempest,
• hurricane and tornado.

Read: Farm Implements, Agriculture Tools Information.

Post-Harvest Losses:

Crop insurance coverage is available for the period of 14 days starting from the harvesting of crops. This can take place under specific conditions of the cyclone.

Local Calamities:

The damage of crops occurs due to the sliding of land and the farms which are isolated from the area selected.

Documents required for PMFBY:

The farmers who wish to apply for availing crop insurance will have to produce certain important documents.  The following documents are a must for availing the crop insurance on the part of the farmers:

Land Registration documents

This scheme equally applies to all the farmers – the farmer who is the actual landowner and also to the tenant or leaseholder.  The owner must be holding all the documents pertaining to his land and attach photocopies of all the documents pertaining to his land to the application.  In the case of tenant/leaseholder, he must provide the Patta number pertaining to the land he is cultivating.

• Aadhar card copy
• A copy of the Aadhar card must be attached to the application.
• Personal Identification proof
• The farmer must also provide personal identification proof of his self such as Voter card, Ration card, PAN card, etc and copies must be attached to the application.

Details of bank account:

The farmer must also provide his Bank account details such as Bank account number, Bank name, Branch name, place, village, Mandal, district, and state, etc, in the application as the insurance proceeds will be deposited only in the bank account of the farmer.

Declaration of crop sowing:

In case of any loss of the crop by the farmer, the farmer must provide all necessary information regarding the expenses on seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, labor, land tilling, etc.  All this information must be provided in the application.  Also, the reason for the loss must also be clearly given. This is known as sowing declaration.

Collection of Application:

The farmer can collect the crop insurance application from the concerned State or Central Government offices.  The farmer has to take utmost care in filling up the application otherwise the application will be rejected by the authorities who scrutinize the application. 

Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana Online Registration:

• For the registration of a farmer into this scheme, the farmer needs to log in to agri-insurance.gov.in and fill in all the details which are required. Usually, the details include the basic information like name, state, address, district of the farmer.
• The details regarding the land and the details of the bank should be filled in so that the amount which came under the scheme will be directly sent to the account of the bank.
• After filling the form completely, the farmer needs to submit it. After that, an application number will be generated. This number can be used to change the application, track the status of the application, and also print it whenever needed.

In case if you are interested in this: Organic Vegetable Farming Plan.