Image Credit : Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna
Interim Budget 2024-25: The Finance Minister announced that crop insurance is provided to 4 crore farmers under PMFBY.
The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) was launched in 2016 to support production in agriculture by facilitating an affordable crop insurance product. This scheme provides farmers with comprehensive risk cover for their crops from pre-sowing to post-harvest stage against all non-preventable natural risks.
It is being implemented across all states and UTs and has completed eight crop seasons. The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW) endeavoured to make this scheme more transparent, effective, and auto-administration driven for minimising manual interventions and eliminating the usage of different methodologies for implementation and execution on the ground.
Objectives of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
- To provide financial assistance and support to farmers suffering from crop damage or loss arising out of unforeseen events.
- To stabilise the income of farmers for ensuring continuance in farming.
- To encourage the farmers to adopt modern and innovative agricultural practices.
- To ensure crop diversification, credit-worthiness of the farmers, enhance growth and competitiveness of the agriculture sector and protect the farmers from production risks.
Eligibility Criteria Under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
Every farmer, including sharecroppers and tenant farmers growing the notified crops, are eligible for insurance coverage under this scheme. All farmers can obtain voluntary coverage, including Crop Loan Account or Crop Kisan Credit Card (KCC) holders whose credit limit is not renewed.
Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana Application Procedure
The farmers can apply for PMFBY both online and offline. The online application process is as follows:
- The farmers need to go to the PMFBY website and click on the Registration Link.
- The farmers need to fill in the ‘Register for New Farmer User’ form that contains the details of farmer details, residential details, account details and ID details.
- On submitting the ‘Register for New Farmer User’ form, the farmer’s account will be created on the PMFBY website.
- The farmers need to sign in to the PMFBY website and fill in the ‘Crop Insurance Scheme’ application form.
- After filling and submitting the ‘Crop Insurance Scheme’ application form, the application process is complete.
The offline application for PMFBY is as follows:
- The farmers need to visit the insurance company and fill the ‘Crop Insurance Scheme’ application form.
- After filling the ‘Crop Insurance Scheme’ application form, it should be submitted to the Department of Agriculture.
- The application reference number will be provided to the farmers to track the status of the application.
The farmers can track the application status on the PMFBY website through the ‘Application Status’ option on the home page. Once the application is accepted, the farmers need to pay the premium to obtain the insurance cover under this scheme.
