New Delhi: The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved the continuation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme till 2025-26 with an overall outlay of Rs 69,515.71 crore from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
The decision will help in risk coverage of crops from non-preventable natural calamities for farmers across the country till 2025-26. In addition, for large-scale technology infusion in the implementation of the scheme leading to increasing transparency and claim calculation and settlement, the Union Cabinet has also approved the creation of the Fund for Innovation and Technology (FIAT) with a corpus of Rs 824.77 crore.
The fund will be utilised towards funding technological initiatives under the scheme namely, YES-TECH, WINDS, as well as research and development studies. Yield Estimation System using Technology (YES-TECH) uses Remote Sensing Technology for yield estimation with minimum 30 per cent weightage to Technology based yield estimates. Nine major states are currently implementing (namely AP, Assam, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, MP, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka).
Other states are also being on-boarded expeditiously. With wider implementation of YES-TECH, Crop Cutting Experiments and related issues will be gradually phased out. Under YES-TECH Claim calculation and settlement has been done for 2023-24. Madhya Pradesh has adopted 100 per cent technology based yield estimation.
Weather Information and Network Data Systems (WINDS) envisages setting up Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) at block level and Automatic Rain Gauges (ARGs) at panchayat level. Under WINDS, 5 times increase in current network density is envisaged to develop hyper local weather data. Under the initiative, only data rental costs are payable by Central and State Governments. Nine major states are in the process of implementing WINDS (Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh Puducherry, Assam, Odisha, Karnataka, Uttarakhand & Rajasthan are in progress), while other states have also expressed willingness to implement.
WINDS could not be implemented by states during 2023-24 (1st year as per EFC) due to various background preparatory and planning work required before tendering. Accordingly, the Union Cabinet has approved 2024-25 as the first year of implementation of WINDS as compared to 2023-24 earlier to give benefit to state governments with higher central fund sharing in 90:10 ratio.
The government said all efforts are made and will continue to be made to saturate all farmers of northeastern states on priority. However, due to the scheme being voluntary and low gross cropped area in the northeastern states, flexibility has been given to avoid surrender of funds and for reallocation in other development projects and schemes with fund requirements. (With Inputs from ANI)
