In a New Year gift to farmers, the Modi Government on Wednesday approved continuation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme till 2025-26 and extension of subsidy on Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) fertilizer.
The key decisions were taken in a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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The Cabinet also 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.
Another proposal approved by the Cabinet is that of the Department of Fertilisers for the extension of One-time Special Package on Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) beyond the NBS subsidy @ Rs 3,500 per MT for the period from January 1, 2025 till further orders to ensure sustainable availability of DAP at affordable prices to the farmers. The tentative budgetary requirement for above would be approximately upto Rs 3,850 crore.
Hailing the Cabinet decisions in a series post on X, , PM Modi said, “The first decision of the new year is dedicated to the crores of farmer brothers and sisters of our country. We have approved
increasing the allocation for crop insurance. While this will provide more protection to farmers’ crops, the worry of loss will also be reduced.”
He said, “The Cabinet decision on extending the One-time Special Package on Di-Ammonium Phosphate will help our farmers by ensuring DAP at affordable prices.”
“Ours is a government fully committed to furthering the welfare of farmers. We are proud of all our farmer sisters and brothers who work hard to feed our nation. The first Cabinet of 2025 is dedicated to enhancing prosperity for our farmers. I am glad that key decisions have been taken in this regard,” the prime minister added.
The Cabinet’s decision for the continuation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme will help in risk coverage of crops from non-preventable natural calamities for farmers across the country till 2025-26.
Additionally, 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. It will be used to fund 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 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 & 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. Nine 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 per cent of premium subsidy with North Eastern States. However, due to the 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.
