New Delhi: The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) is a scheme involving several stakeholders including State Governments, financial institutions, insurance companies and farmers, both loanee and non-loanee. It also envisages adoption of technology for integration of all stakeholders on the National Crop Insurance Portal for scheme administration and in capturing crop loss assessment etc. Issues faced by stakeholders in adopting the new technology regimen, in following seasonality discipline alongwith the fact that claim settlement is primarily dependent on receipt of clear yield data from States as well as timely payment of their share of premium subsidy to insurance companies are some of the major challenges in implementing PMFBY.
The scheme provides for setting up of Technical Support Unit (TSU) with crop insurance expert to track and evaluate the scheme implementation. Initially, the Agriculture Insurance Company of India Ltd. (AIC) and subsequently the GIC Re were designated as TSU. Government has recently engaged a team from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to set up Project Monitoring Unit (PMF)/TSU.
Operational Guidelines of PMFBY also contain provisions for bidding/notification of PMFBY by States for three years so that insurance companies concerned may be able to create infrastructure and manpower in the clusters allocated to them. The Government is impressing upon the States at various platforms for bidding/notification for longer period. Many States are now floating bids for longer periods say one year or more and even upto three years.
There is a two pronged strategy for use of technology in PMFBY. Firstly, the scheme will be administered through National Crop Insurance Portal on which all stakeholders have been integrated to facilitate realtime information flow and service delivery through better coordination, transparency and auto-administration of the scheme. Secondly, for accurate assessment of yield loss, risk classification, rationalization of Crop Cutting Experiments etc. cutting edge technology VIZ. Remote sensing Imagery through satellites and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV/DRONE), Smartphone/CCE Agri App are being deployed.
