Parliament Question: Measures to address farmer distress in highly vulnerable regions

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-817 TO BE ANSWERED ON 06/02/2026 MEASURES TO ADDRESS FARMER DISTRESS IN HIGHLY VULNERABLE REGIONS 817 Dr. Sasmit Patra: Will the Minister of AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE be pleased to state: (a) whether Government is aware of the fact that farmers in Ganjam, Koraput, Rayagada, Malkangiri, Gajapati, Nabarangpur and Kandhamal districts face repeated crop losses, poor paddy and millet procurement and delayed insurance settlements despite high vulnerability to cyclones and drought; (b) the district-wise data for the last three years on Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) enrollment, claims admitted, claims rejected and average settlement time in this belt; and (c) the time-bound measures being proposed for assured millet procurement, decentralised storage, local processing units and direct income stabilization for small and tribal farmers of this region? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE FOR AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE (SHRI RAMNATH THAKUR) (a): Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) aims at supporting sustainable income in crop production, especially in adverse climatic conditions by way of:  Providing financial support to farmers suffering crop loss/damage arising out of unforeseen events.  Stabilizing the income of farmers to ensure their continuance in farming.  Encouraging farmers to adopt innovative and modern agricultural practices.  Ensuring credit worthiness of the farmers, crop diversification and enhancing growth and competitiveness of agriculture sector besides protecting the farmers from production risks. Majority of the claims are settled within the stipulated timelines under the Operational Guidelines of the scheme by the insurance companies. However, during the implementation of PMFBY, some complaints including complaints from elected representatives were received in the past about payment of claims which are primarily on account of (a) delay in providing State Government share of subsidy (b) non-payment/delayed payment or under payment of claims on account of incorrect/delayed submission of insurance proposals by banks (c) discrepancy in yield data & consequent disputes between State Government and insurance companies etc. The pending claims on account of these issue are settled after their resolution as per provisions of the scheme.Government has taken various steps like development of National Crop Insurance Portal (NCIP) as a single source of data ensuring subsidy payment, co-ordination, transparency, dissemination of information and delivery of services; Digiclaim module on NCIP to calculate and directly transfer of claim amount to farmers account; Delinking of Central Government share of premium subsidy from that of State Governments for early paymenet of proportionate claims relating to the Central Government share; auto-calculation and levying of 12% penalty on insurance companies for delay in claims through NCIP; 12% penalty on States for delay in release of their share of premium from stipulated timelines; tranche based claims payment; leveraging technology in implementation of the scheme, various steps like capturing of yield data/Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) data through CCE-Agri App & uploading it on the NCIP, allowing insurance companies to witness the conduct of CCEs, integration of State land records with NCIP, YESTECH & WINDS etc. to strengthen implementation of this scheme all over India including districts of Odisha to bring transparency and ensure timely settlement of claims. (b): Odisha is one of the major States implementing the PMFBY since its inception for the benefit of their farmers. District-wise details number of farmer applications enrolled, claims reported, claims paid and claims pending during last three years i.e. 2022-23 to 2024-25 in Odisha under PMFBY are given in Annexure. (c): To promote creation of agricultural marketing infrastructure including storage infrastructure, the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of India is implementing “Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI)” sub-scheme of Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) since 01.04.2014, and is implemented across the country including state of Odisha. AMI is a Capital investment, open ended, demand driven, credit linked, back ended subsidy scheme. Beneficiaries viz, Individuals, Agri-preneurs, farmers, FPOs, Cooperatives, and state agencies etc. are eligible for assistance. Under the scheme, the subsidy @ 33.33% for NER, hilly area, Women/SC/ST promoters, PACS & FPOs etc. and @25% for others is available. In the state of Odisha, a total of 723 storage infrastructure projects of storage capacity of 10,91,492 MT has come up with central subsidy of Rs. 4393.69 lakh under AMI sub-scheme of ISAM since inception and up to 31.12.2025. In addition to storage infrastructure projects, 29 projects of Marketing Infrastructure (other than storage) have also been assisted under the scheme and subsidy to the tune of Rs. 927.16 lakh has been released. Further, in order to address the shortage of storage capacity for food grains in the country and creation of decentralised scientific grain storage infrastructure, the Government, on 31st May, 2023, has approved the Plan for the “World’s Largest Grain Storage Plan in Cooperative Sector”, which has been rolled out as a Pilot Project. The Plan entails creation of various agri infrastructure including godowns, custom hiring centers, processing units, Fair Price Shops, etc. at PACS/ other cooperative societies level through convergence of various existing schemes of the Government of India (GoI), such as, Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF), Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure Scheme (AMI), Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM), Pradhan Mantri Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme (PMFME), etc. Under the pilot project, construction of godowns in 11 PACS of 11 States has been completed. Further, under the Extended Pilot, more than 500 PACS across the country have been identified for the construction of godowns under the World’s Largest Grain Storage Plan in the Cooperative Sector.Annexure PMFBY & RWBCIS: District wise Coverage and Claims Report of Odisha from 2022-23 to 2024-25 as on 31.12.2025 District Farmer Applications Reported Paid Pending (Odisha) Enrolled Claims Claims Claims (In No.) (Rs. In Crore) Anugul 10,05,677 0.30 0.29 0.01 Balangir 34,30,068 167.64 167.25 0.40 Baleshwar 17,08,262 19.68 19.62 0.05 Bargarh 44,08,279 43.54 43.12 0.42 Bhadrak 16,43,575 15.27 14.96 0.31 Boudh 2,53,953 2.23 2.21 0.02 Cuttack 11,09,657 30.87 30.85 0.02 Deogarh 5,20,453 0.76 0.76 0.00 Dhenkanal 7,38,656 0.67 0.67 0.00 Gajapati 1,83,050 2.58 2.49 0.09 Ganjam 24,22,475 39.79 38.30 1.49 Jagatsinghapur 7,26,034 5.55 5.41 0.14 Jajapur 21,05,239 48.04 45.57 2.47 Jharsuguda 20,05,545 107.89 107.35 0.54 Kalahandi 15,25,348 92.90 92.39 0.51 Kandhamal 1,46,661 0.29 0.29 0.00 Kendrapara 19,30,294 11.83 11.37 0.45 Kendujhar 8,73,671 0.00 0.00 0.00 Khordha 8,37,767 17.89 17.78 0.11 Koraput 1,39,575 0.51 0.45 0.07 Malkangiri 1,12,854 0.38 0.22 0.16 Mayurbhanj 9,05,564 0.24 0.23 0.00 Nabarangpur 2,65,914 1.42 1.40 0.02 Nayagarh 4,54,223 5.56 5.45 0.11 Nuapada 5,96,815 13.42 13.37 0.04 Puri 16,15,226 144.49 143.33 1.16 Rayagada 1,70,150 0.18 0.18 0.00 Sambalpur 20,81,696 38.17 36.99 1.18 Subarnapur 5,96,694 0.05 0.04 0.00 Sundargarh 23,48,174 165.48 164.78 0.70 Total (Odisha) 3,68,61,549 977.63 967.13 10.50 ******