The State Administrative Council (SAC) which met here today under the chairmanship of Governor, N N Vohra gave nod to the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yogana (PMFBY) in Jammu & Kashmir. The Scheme shall be rolled out from Kharif season-2016 onwards.The implementation of the Scheme would be landmark towards securing the crops of the farmers and growers against natural calamities, pests and diseases and shall cover all major risks to the crops. It will provide major relief to the farming community against losses suffered by them on account of un-favorable and fluctuating weather and climatic conditions including rain, hail and wind storm, flood, inundation and landslide, drought, dry spells, pests, diseases etc.The farmer shall have to pay a uniform premium of only 2 % for all Kharif crops and 1.5 per cent for all Rabi crop. In case of annual Horticulture and Commercial crops, farmer shall have to pay a premium of only 5 %. The remaining part of the premium subsidy shall be borne by the Centre and the State on 50:50 basis. The State Government will be implementing the Scheme in a phased manner and to begin with, 10 % area is proposed to be covered during 2016-17.
This Scheme is compulsory for the loanee farmers (KCC) and optional for others, but it is envisaged to cover all the farmers in a phased manner within 2 to 3 years depending upon the response towards the Scheme.Backed up by the setting up of Automatic Weather Stations and carrying out Crop Cutting Experiments (CCE) on scientific basis, the scheme promises to provide prompt and easy settlement of claims through the use of technology like GPS, remote sensing and drones to assess actual crop damage/losses.The Scheme shall operate on the principle of ‘Area Approach’ in the selected Defined Areas called Insurance unit (IU). A high level Committee of the State Government will notify Crops and Defined Areas to be covered during the season as per the operational guidelines of PMFBY.The State Agricultural Production Department has been asked to work out necessary details immediately for implementation of the Scheme with effect from Kharif Crop 2016-17 and notify the schedule accordingly. It has also been decided that adequate publicity be given to the Scheme through radio, electronic and print media. To acquaint the farmers with the benefits accruing out of the Scheme, various institutional mechanisms are being put in place for implementation of the Scheme.