• The Centre has urged the farming community to take advantage of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), which has completed 5 years yesterday, in order to become “self-reliant farmers”.
• In a statement, the Union agriculture ministry said claims worth 90,000 crore rupees have so far been disbursed to farmers since the launch of the scheme on 13th January 2016.
• The Central Government’s flagship crop insurance scheme – the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) has successfully completed 5 years of its operation.
• The government took a historic step towards strengthening risk coverage of crops for farmers and  approved the scheme on 13th January, 2016.
• The scheme was conceived as a milestone initiative to provide a comprehensive risk solution at the lowest uniform premium across the country for farmers.
• In the scheme, premium cost over and above the farmer share is equally subsidized by the Centre and States.
• Ministry of Agriculture has said that the average sum insured per hectare has increased from 15 thousnad 100 during the pre-PMFBY Schemes to 40 thousand 700 under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
• With an aim to constantly bring about improvements, the     Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was made voluntary for all farmers, post its revamp in February 2020.

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• Besides, the States have also been provided flexibility to rationalize the sum insured so that adequate benefit can be availed by the farmers.
• The Scheme covers over 5.5 crore farmers’ applications year on year and till date, claims worth 90 thousand crore rupees have already been paid out under the Scheme.
• Aadhar seeding has helped in speedy claim settlement directly into the farmer accounts.
• Even during COVID-19 lock down period nearly 70 lakh farmers benefitted and claims worth  over  8 thousand 741 crore rupees were transferred to the beneficiaries.
• The government has urged the farmers to take advantage of the scheme by associating themselves to become self-sufficient in times of crisis and support the creation of an    Aatmanirbhar Kisan.