BHUBANESWAR: Farmers enrolled under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) for 2020-21 kharif crops are facing difficulty in uploading data on the National Crop Insurance Portal (NCIP) with the state government linking the scheme with Bhulekh, its land web portal.
The NCIP portal is not accepting the data of a large number of farmers who have no records of rights over the land in the notified areas covered under the crop insurance scheme. “The farmers whose data is uploaded on the NCIP shall only be eligible for insurance coverage and accordingly the premium subsidy will also be released,” the guidelines said.
As many farmers who have enrolled under PMFBY for the current kharif season have inherited the landed property from their fathers or forefathers and the ownership has not changed to their names, the crop insurance portal of the Central Government is not accepting their applications.
An officer, who is familiar with the problem, said the percentage of farmers having ownership of agricultural land will be less than 10 pc in the State as there has been no major settlement under Odisha Survey and Settlement Act since 1962-63.
If land is not transferred to farmers intending to be covered under the crop insurance scheme, he will be treated as a sharecropper and accordingly, an entry will be made in the crop insurance portal. Such farmers will have to upload the Aadhaar Card and voter identity card of his father along with land details in the NCIP for registration. In absence of Aadhaar or voter ID, the applicant has to submit an affidavit.
As per the revamped guidelines issued by the Centre on PMFBY, no other platform is allowed to be used for uploading of farmers’ data except NCIP. The extended date for farmers registration ended on August 17. The insurance companies will take 15 days time to scrutinise the applications in case of loanee farmers and 30 days for non-loanee farmers.
Most of the farmers are not aware of these changes in the revised guidelines as the insurance companies selected by the state government were announced on July 27. Three insurance companies selected for the State to implement the crop insurance had no time to educate the PACS/LAMPS staff on the revised guidelines or train them on data uploading due to the Covid pandemic lockdowns.
Fearing rejection of their applications, farmers organisations have urged the state government to keep in abeyance of the new guidelines for the kharif season.