The Union Government on Tuesday approved new insurance provisions under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) to compensate farmers for crop losses caused by wild animal attacks and paddy inundation in flood-prone regions. An official statement issued today said the revised modalities will reinforce protection for farmers facing sudden, localised and severe crop damage.
Crop loss due to wild animal attacks has now been designated as the fifth add-on cover under the “Localised Risk” category. States will identify the wild species responsible for crop depredation and notify vulnerable districts or insurance units on the basis of historical data. Farmers will need to report such losses within 72 hours through the Crop Insurance App using geo-tagged photographs.
The Ministry stated that the decision follows long-standing requests from several States and has been framed in line with the PMFBY Operational Guidelines to ensure scientific and transparent implementation nationwide. The rollout is scheduled from the Kharif 2026 season.
The coverage is expected to benefit farmers in regions with high human–wildlife conflict, including Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and the Himalayan and north-eastern States.
The Government has also reinstated paddy inundation as a localised calamity cover. The risk category was removed in 2018 due to concerns about moral hazard and assessment challenges, which left farmers in flood-prone regions without compensation for submergence-related losses. The new framework aims to address this gap while maintaining technological and procedural safeguards for assessment and claim settlement.
The inclusion of paddy inundation is expected to particularly benefit farmers in coastal and flood-affected States such as Odisha, Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.
The revised modalities were prepared after an expert committee’s recommendations were approved by Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The Ministry said that the decision will enable timely claim settlement through technology-based verification, making PMFBY more responsive and farmer-centric.