The Modi Government on Wednesday approved major changes in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) making it voluntary for farmers with existing crop loans or those willing to take new ones, as it seeks to address the concerns raised by farmers’ body and States in implementation of these programmes.

After the Cabinet meeting, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the Government has decided to revamp PMFBY and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS).

The Cabinet approved modification of certain parameters/provisions of ongoing PMFBY and RWBCIS schemes. “Enrolment under the scheme to be made voluntary for all farmers (both PMFBY/ RWBCIS),” the Agriculture Minister said. He said currently 58 per cent of total farmers are loanee and the remaining 42 per cent are non-loanee. The number of farmers opting for these crop insurance schemes may drop immediately but the enrolment would eventually pick up, Tomar said. These modifications will help in addressing the concerns raised about the PMFBY scheme by farmers organisations and States, he said.

Among other modification, Tomar said the allocation of business to insurance firms through tender process would be done for three years as against the current policy of one to three years.

The Minister said insurance claims worth `60,000 crore have been cleared, and `13,000 crore premiums collected.  As per modification, States will not be allowed to implement these schemes in subsequent seasons in case of considerable delay in release of requisite premium subsidy to insurance companies beyond a prescribed time limit.

Cut-off dates for invoking this provision for kharif and rabi seasons will be 31st March and 30th September of successive years, respectively.

The Cabinet also approved provisioning of at least 3 per cent of the total allocation for the scheme to be made by the Centre and implementing State Governments for administrative expenses.

For estimation of crop losses/admissible claims in the PMFBY, 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.