NEW DELHI, 08 December 2016 : With the launch in kharif 2016 season, India's Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) has made good progress, as it has covered over 26.50 per cent or 36.66 million farmers.

According to the Indian agriculture ministry estimates, it touch to 30 per cent by the this rabi season in 2016-17.

In terms of total area covered the achievement has been significant amounting to a total area of 38.86 million hectares and sum insured of $20.88 billion (Rs 141,339 crore).

The PMFBY was recast as a new scheme by the Government as the earlier existing insurance schemes were not meeting the full requirements of the farmers for insurance coverage.

The performance this season has improved by 18.50 per cent in terms of farmers coverage, 15 per cent in terms of area coverage and 104 per cent in terms of sum insured in comparison to Kharif 2015, which happened to be one of the worst drought affected seasons when the number of farmers covered was 309 lakh (22.33 per cent), total area coverage was 33.9 million hectares and sum insured was $10.24 billion (Rs 69307 crore).

The performance in Kharif 2016 is better despite the fact that there were teething issues to begin with. For instance, many States did the bidding process for selection of the insurance companies for concerned clusters for the first time and consequently, the notification of the scheme was delayed in a number of States.

The achievements in Kharif 2016 as compared to Kharif 2015 are notable specially as in Kharif 2015 in most of the States the cut-off date for availing insurance for loanee farmers was September 30, 2016 and the enrolment under crop insurance shot up after prolonged spell of drought, whereas this year has been one of normal monsoons and window for availing insurance was much smaller with the cut-off date for availing insurance being July 31, 2016, which was later extended to August 10, 2016.

Furthermore there has been a quantum jump of more than 6 times in the coverage of non-loanee farmers from 1.48 million in Kharif 2015 to 10.26 million in Kharif 2016, which shows that the scheme has been well received by the non-loanee segment.

Another significant achievement in this season has been 104 per cent enhancement in sum insured. This was made possible as PMFBY mandates that the sum insured must be equal to the Scale of Finance and therefore, reflects better risk coverage of farmers in comparison to earlier schemes.