Maharashtra rejects 4.67 lakh PMFBY applications; 174 CSCs deactivated

What the Record Shows

The Government of Maharashtra rejected 4,67,441 crop-insurance applications under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) during the Kharif 2024 season and a further 1,26,830 applications during Rabi 2024-25, after field surveys and verification, the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply on 1 August 2025. Replying to Unstarred Question No. 1474 tabled by Dr Fauzia Khan, the Ministry said the state "noticed fraudulent applications enrolled by farmers" in both seasons and rejected them "in terms of provisions in Operational Guidelines" of the scheme.

The Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Ramnath Thakur, said the applications were rejected for reasons "including enrollment on uncultivable barren land, incorrect area/land details". The same reply recorded action against the enrolment channel: 174 Common Service Centre (CSC) identification numbers found to have been involved in fraudulent enrolment during 2024-25 had been deactivated "so far", and the State Government had registered criminal cases against 68 CSC IDs that it said were involved in fraudulent enrolment.

A district-wise annexure to the reply showed the rejections were heavily concentrated in the Marathwada region. Beed district alone accounted for 1,12,950 rejected applications in Kharif 2024 and 54,396 in Rabi 2024-25, by far the highest of any district. Satara (53,087), Pune (35,024), Solapur (28,382) and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (22,962) followed for the Kharif season, while Buldhana (14,670), Parbhani (13,782) and Sangli (11,440) recorded the largest Rabi rejections.

The reply added that complaints filed by farmers over wrongful rejection are "addressed in accordance with the grievance redressal mechanism specified in the scheme guidelines". No response from any CSC operator is recorded in the parliamentary answer, and the Ministry named no individual.

How It Worked

PMFBY is a heavily subsidised crop-insurance scheme in which farmers pay a nominal premium and the balance is met by the central and state governments. Enrolment for non-loanee farmers runs substantially through Common Service Centres, the government-authorised village-level outlets set up under the CSC Special Purpose Vehicle, which are paid a fee for each application they upload to the National Crop Insurance Portal.

According to the Ministry's reply, the fraudulent enrolments were caught not at the point of entry but through subsequent field verification. Under the scheme's Operational Guidelines, a state government conducts surveys and, where an application does not stand up, approves it for rejection on the portal; only then can the insurer reject it. The 4,67,441 Kharif 2024 and 1,26,830 Rabi 2024-25 rejections are the outcome of that verification, the reply said, with barren or uncultivable land and incorrect area or land details cited as the recurring grounds.

The 2024-25 findings follow an earlier cluster. Screening of Kharif 2023 applications, reported in January 2024, had flagged about 4.14 lakh applications statewide, then the highest rejection rate since the scheme began, with more than 1.09 lakh from Beed alone; that earlier reporting described enrolments filed for crops not sown and on land the applicants did not own. The one-rupee premium then in force had removed the cost barrier to filing, and the per-application fee gave the enrolment channel a volume incentive. The parliamentary answer of 1 August 2025 now puts official Kharif 2024 and Rabi 2024-25 figures on the record and supersedes those earlier press estimates.

On the enforcement side, the reply set out a graded response: deactivation of the 174 CSC IDs said to be involved, and criminal cases registered by the State Government against 68 of them. Those cases are at the complaint and investigation stage; the reply reports no charge framed and no conviction.

Who Lost Money

The direct exposure is to the public purse. PMFBY premiums are overwhelmingly funded by government subsidy, so a bogus claim, had it been paid, would have drawn on central and state funds rather than a private insurer alone. The Ministry did not put a rupee value on the rejected applications, and no official figure for attempted or avoided loss has been quantified. Because payout rates vary widely by crop and area, the application counts cannot responsibly be converted into a rupee total, and this report does not do so.

The second set of people affected are genuine cultivators in Beed, Parbhani, Nanded and the wider Marathwada belt, where drought and erratic rainfall make crop insurance a real safety net. A screening process large enough to reject nearly six lakh applications across two seasons inevitably sweeps in some legitimate filings; the reply's reference to a grievance-redressal route for wrongful rejection is the acknowledgement of that risk. What individual complainants have recovered is not stated in the record.

Where It Stands Now

As of the Ministry's reply of 1 August 2025, the rejections for Kharif 2024 and Rabi 2024-25 were complete "as on date", the 174 CSC IDs stood deactivated, and criminal cases against 68 CSC IDs had been registered by the State Government. Those criminal matters remain at an early stage. A chargesheet, FIR or complaint contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the CSC operators concerned are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues.

This position is more current than earlier reporting on the Kharif 2023 cluster, which had spoken of roughly 4.14 lakh rejected applications and action referred against 96 CSCs. The parliamentary answer supersedes those numbers with verified season-wise totals and a different count of deactivated and prosecuted CSC IDs, reflecting how the administrative and criminal processes moved through 2024-25. Farmer grievances over rejection continue to be handled through the scheme's redressal mechanism.

What It Means

The episode is less a story about a single scheme failing than about where its controls sit. PMFBY's design places a human, fee-earning intermediary between the farmer and the portal, and the safeguard against abuse is post-facto verification by the state rather than a hard check at enrolment. That is why the fraudulent applications were caught, but only after they were filed and in numbers large enough to require mass field surveys.

For a farmer, the practical lesson is to confirm that an enrolment was actually completed correctly in one's own name and land record. Enrolments and claims can be tracked on the National Crop Insurance Portal, and complaints about wrongful rejection or about an intermediary can be raised through the scheme's grievance-redressal mechanism, including the Krishi Rakshak Portal and helpline. The rejection-approval workflow itself, in which only applications approved for rejection by the state can be rejected by insurers, is set out in the Ministry's own material on the scheme. Readers following enforcement action can find related coverage in the Oquilia enforcement archive, alongside recent market-conduct cases such as the SEBI order over a fictitious export order and the Setco Automotive promoters' recovery matter.

FAQ

Does this mean the people named are guilty?

No individual is named in the parliamentary reply. The State Government has registered criminal cases against 68 CSC IDs and deactivated 174 more, but a case registered is not a finding of guilt. A complaint or FIR contains allegations, not findings; those concerned are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues.

What exactly did the Government of Maharashtra do?

Per the reply, after field surveys the state rejected 4,67,441 PMFBY applications in Kharif 2024 and 1,26,830 in Rabi 2024-25 under the scheme's Operational Guidelines, citing grounds such as enrolment on uncultivable barren land and incorrect land details. It also deactivated 174 CSC IDs and registered criminal cases against 68 of them.

How many Common Service Centres are affected?

The reply states that 174 CSC identification numbers involved in fraudulent enrolment during 2024-25 had been deactivated, and criminal cases had been registered against 68 CSC IDs. The Ministry did not publish the identities of the centres or operators concerned.

Have genuine farmers with real claims been affected?

A screening large enough to reject nearly six lakh applications can affect some legitimate filings. The Ministry said complaints of wrongful rejection are addressed through the scheme's grievance-redressal mechanism. The record does not state how many such complaints were upheld or what compensation, if any, followed.

Where can I read the official record?

The figures come from the Government of India's written reply to Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1474, answered on 1 August 2025, with a district-wise annexure of rejected applications. The document is published on the Parliament of India portal and is linked below.

This report is based on the Rajya Sabha reply to Unstarred Question No. 1474 dated 1 August 2025 and the Press Information Bureau material on PMFBY application rejection, reviewed on 30 July 2026.