Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar launched National Crop Insurance Portal’s digitised claim settlement module namely DigiClaim under the ambit of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) today at Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi. “With the launch of the module, claims will be disbursed electronically, which will benefit the respective farmers of six states. Now, the automated claim settlement process will be an ongoing activity to ease all insured farmers’ lives and provide them with a sustainable financial flow and support,” the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare said today.
“With the launch of a DigiClaim Module, insurance claims totalling Rs 1260.35 crore have been disbursed on March 23, 2023, to insured farmers in the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Haryana, and the process will continue as and when the claims are released,” the ministry said. The minister also mentioned that to date Rs 1.32 lakh crore claim amount has been disbursed to the insured farmers under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. He also took special note of ‘Meri Policy, Mere Haath’ ongoing campaign and observed that the campaign has been monumental in enhancing the awareness around PMFBY at the grassroot level.
While speaking on the occasion, Tomar said that the Government of India is closely working with all exited states from the scheme and have had discussions with their senior officials in which Andhra Pradesh and Punjab are making a comeback to the scheme, which shows a shining example of corporative federalism. Governments of Telangana, Gujarat, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand have also been approached to rejoin PMFBY and several discussions have been underway. Out of these states, Telangana and Jharkhand have indicated their willingness to come back under PMFBY.
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In the current system, there have been several instances of insured farmers’ claims being delayed due to a variety of factors. Taking cognizance of farmers’ welfare and expediting the claim disbursal process of valid crop loss claims, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare has come up with the DigiClaim Module. With this, now farmers’ claims will be processed directly to their respective bank accounts in a transparent and accountable manner. This technology has been enabled through the integration of the National Crop Insurance Portal (NCIP) and Public Finance Management System (PFMS).
This would directly impact the claim reversal ratio, which is expected to go down with DigiClaim. Another noteworthy feature of this digital advancement is that farmers would be able to track the claim settlement process on their mobile phones in real time and avail the scheme’s benefits.
Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare highlighted several other prolific achievements of PMFBY to mark the scheme’s seventh year of conception. The Union Secretary also appealed to state governments to show their participation in this endeavour by timely uploading yield data onto the crop insurance portal and releasing the states’ share on time so that claims could be transferred to farmers’ bank accounts in a hassle-free manner, assisting the ministry in achieving its true purpose of developing this technology.
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Agriculture Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Surya Pratap Shahi, who joined the launch via video conferencing, also gave his suggestions for better implementation of the scheme.
“This technological advancement has taken PMFBY one step further towards modernisation of the scheme. In the era of rapid innovations, digitisation and technology are playing a significant role in scaling up the reach and operations of PMFBY with precision agriculture. In the last few years, various innovative technologies have been piloted and integrated with the scheme to make the process of yield estimation and crop loss assessment more accurate, like Yes-Tech, WINDS and CROPIC. Further, for timely redressal of farmers’ grievances, Farmer Grievance Portal has been launched in the first phase for the state of Chhattisgarh, which has received a plethora of positive responses and in the second phase, it will be implemented in the entire country,” the ministry said.
DigiClaim is yet another feather in PMFBY’s cap in its ongoing effort to usher in advanced technological solutions such as automated calculation and disbursement of crop insurance claims.
