New Delhi: Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar virtually interacted with stake-holders across the nation on the occasion of the completion of five years of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.
He said that there is a need to raise awareness about the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana so that many more farmers can take advantage of the scheme. The scheme, which was launched as a major step to provide a comprehensive risk solution at the lowest uniform premium across the country for farmers, was approved by the union cabinet on 13th January 2016.
Tomar said, “The scheme is a milestone crop insurance scheme covering full crop cycle against the losses occurring due to non-preventable natural risk. A total of Rs. 90, 000 Crore have been paid as claims to farmers till now. The scheme was fully operational during the COVID-19 lockdown, distributing claims of over 8741.3 crores to 69.70 lakh farmers across India, which is highly commendable.”
As per the PIB press release, the meeting was attended by over 150 representatives including officials of the state governments, banks, and insurance companies. All the stakeholders discussed key features of the scheme such as integration of land records with the PMFBY portal, Crop Insurance mobile-app, satellite imagery, remote-sensing technology for robust coverage around the country.
As an endeavor to constantly bring about improvements, the scheme was made voluntary for all farmers, post its revamp in February 2020. Over 5.5 crore farmer applications have been received on a year on year basis, taking the count of total farmer applications to over 28 crores in the last 5 years.
Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Aggrawal said that the PMFBY is the largest insurance scheme in the world for farmers and it is an example of effective utilization of technology in the Agriculture sector.
Tomar, along with union minister of state Parshottam Rupala and Kailash Chaudhary congratulated the farmers of India for enrolling in the scheme in such large numbers and wished success for the scheme in the future.