PMFBY

13th July, 2021 Agriculture

Context

Assam's Agriculture department has set a ambitious target for enrolling five lakh farmers under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.

About PMFBY

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) launched in 2016 is an insurance service for farmers for their yields.
It was formulated in line with One Nation–One Scheme
It aims to reduce the premium burden on farmers and ensure early settlement of crop assurance claim for the full insured sum.
PMFBY aims 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. The scheme is implemented by empanelled general insurance companies.
Selection of Implementing Agency (IA) is done by the concerned State Government through bidding.
The scheme is compulsory for loanee farmers availing Crop Loan /KCC account for notified crops and voluntary for other others. The scheme is being administered by Ministry of Agriculture.
Premium: The prescribed premium is 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 1.5% for all rabi crops.
In the case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium is 5%.
Premium cost over and above the farmer share was equally subsidized by States and GoI.
However, central government shared 90% of the premium subsidy for North Eastern States to promote the uptake in the region.

PMFBY 2.0

The central government had revamped PMFBY in the 2020 Kharif season. Features are:
Enrolment is 100% voluntary for all farmers from 2020 Kharif.
Centre’s premium subsidy: 30% for unirrigated areas/crops and 25% for irrigated areas/crops.
States/UTs have option to select any number of additional risk covers/features.
Insurance companies have to now spend 0.5% of the total premium collected on information, education and communication (IEC) activities.

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