Cabinet has approved revamping of various crop insurance schemes of central government to address the existing challenges in their implementation.

The government will revamp "Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)" and "Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS)". Allocation of business to insurance companies will be done for three years, said an official statement issued on Wednesday.

Central subsidy under PMFBY and RWBCIS will be limited for premium rates up to 30 percent for unirrigated areas and 25 percent for irrigated areas. Districts having 50 percent or more irrigated area will be considered as irrigated area for both the schemes.

Flexibility will be given to states/UTs to implement the schemes with option to select any or many of additional risk covers like prevented sowing, localised calamity, mid-season adversity, and post-harvest losses.

Further, states/UTs can offer specific single peril risk/insurance covers such as hailstorm etc, under PMFBY and RWBCIS with or without opting for base cover.

However, states will not be allowed to implement the scheme in subsequent seasons in case of considerable delay by them in release of requisite premium subsidy to the insurance companies concerned beyond a prescribed time limit.

Cut-off dates for invoking this provision for Kharif and Rabi seasons will be March 31 and September 30 of successive years respectively.

For estimation of crop losses/admissible claims, two-step process will be adopted, based on defined deviation matrix using specific triggers like weather indicators, satellite indicators, etc. for each area along with normal ranges and deviation ranges.

Only areas with deviations will be subject to crop cutting experiments (CCEs) for assessment of yield loss (PMFBY).

Technology solutions such as Smart Sampling Technique (SST) and optimisation of number of CCEs will be adopted in conducting CCEs.

In case of non-provision of yield data beyond cut-off date by the states to implementing insurance companies, claims will be settled based on yield arrived through use of technology solution (PMFBY alone).

Enrolment under the scheme will be made voluntary for all farmers. Central share in premium subsidy will be increased to 90 percent for the north eastern states from the existing sharing pattern of 50:50.

Provisioning of at least 3 percent of the total allocation for the scheme will be made by the central and implementing state governments for administrative expenses. This will be subject to an upper cap fixed by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare for each state.

“With these changes, it is expected that farmers would be able to manage risk in agriculture production in a better way and will succeed in Stabilising the farm income,” the statement said.

“Further, it will increase coverage in north eastern region enabling farmers of NER to manage their agricultural risk in a better way. These changes will also enable quick and accurate yield estimation leading to faster claims settlement.”

These changes are proposed to be implemented from Kharif’ season 2020 throughout the country, it said.

First Published:Feb 19, 2020 9:27 PM IST