- Union Agriculture Minister has told the Lok Sabha that the government is working on making Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna(PMFBY) more effective.
- The Centre is planning to make changes such as (a)making crop insurance voluntary to all farmers (b)removal of high premium crops and (c)giving flexibility to states to provide customised add on products.
- The ministry has also proposed three-year compulsory allocation of work to insurance companies by states to prevent repeated tendering process that delays implementation of the scheme.
- The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme) was launched in 2016.The scheme has replaced the two schemes National Agricultural Insurance Scheme(NAIS) as well as the Modified NAIS.
- PMFBY envisages a uniform premium of 2% to be paid by farmers for Kharif crops and 1.5% for Rabi crops.The premium for annual commercial and horticultural crops will be 5%.
- The PMFBY mandates compulsory coverage for all loanee farmers and non-loanee farmers too are encouraged.
- The scheme is open to all food and oilseeds crops and annual commercial horticultural crops for which past yield data is available and for which the requisite number of Crop Cutting Experiments are conducted as part of the General Crop Estimation Survey(GCES).
