By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JAN 01, 2025: THE Union Cabinet, has approved 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 to the same, for large scale technology infusion in implementation of the scheme leading to increasing transparency and claim calculation and settlement, the Union Cabinet has also approved creation of 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, etc as well as Research and Development studies.

Yield Estimation System using Technology (YES-TECH) uses Remote Sensing Technology for yield estimation with minimum 30% weightage to Technology based yield estimates. 9 Major States are currently implementing (namely AP, Assam, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, MP, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu & 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% 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. 9 Major States are in the process of implementing WINDS (namely 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.

All efforts are made and will continue to be made to saturate all farmers of North Eastern States on priority. To this extent, the centre shares 90% of premium subsidy with North Eastern States. However, due to scheme being voluntary and low gross cropped area in North Eastern States, flexibility has been given to avoid surrender of funds and for reallocation in other development projects and schemes with fund requirement.