New Delhi, Jan 13 (IANS): Wishing the beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) on completion of its five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the crop insurance scheme benefited crores of farmers and mitigated their risks against the vagaries of nature.
The Prime Minister extended his wishes to farmers at a time when thousands of them were protesting at Delhi's different borders against the government's three contentious farm laws enacted in September last year during the Monsoon Session of Parliament seeking the withdrawal of these acts. The farmers' agitation entered on 49th day on Wednesday.
In a series of tweets, the Prime Minister said, "An important initiative to secure hardworking farmers from the vagaries of nature, PM Fasal Bima Yojana completes five years today. The Yojana has increased coverage, mitigated risk and benefitted crores of farmers. I congratulate all beneficiaries of the scheme."
The Prime Minister also asked people to get information on how the 'PM Fasal Bima Yojana' has helped farmers from his NaMo app.
"How has PM Fasal Bima Yojana ensured greater benefit to farmers? How has transparency been furthered in the settlement of claims? These, and other aspects relating to PM-FBY have been answered through innovative content on the NaMo App's Your Voice Section," he said.
PMFBY is the government sponsored crop insurance scheme that integrates multiple stakeholders on a single platform. The scheme was launched in 2016 by Prime Minister Modi. It is a comprehensive coverage scheme aimed at protecting farmers from sowing to post-harvest by combining extensive uses of technology to assess crop losses.
On the occasion, Union Agricultural Minister Narendra Singh Tomar also urged farmers to insure their crops.
"Many congratulations and best wishes to all of you on completion of 5 years of Prime Minister Crop Insurance Scheme. I want to urge all the farming brothers that if you have not yet insured your crop, then get your crop insured today," he tweeted.
Earlier, the agitating farmers had announced to burn the copies of the new farm laws at all demonstration sites on the occasion of Lohri on Wednesday, marking their protest against the legislation and showing their anger against the government.
The development comes a day after the protesting farmer unions declared that they will not appear before the Supreme Court-appointed panel, alleging it was "pro-government", and said they won't settle for anything less than the repeal of the three contentious laws.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the implementation of the controversial farm laws till further orders and set up the four-member committee to resolve the impasse between the Centre and the farmer unions protesting at Delhi's borders over the legislations.