Telangana Government is planning to take the help of technology, perhaps for the first time in the country, in estimating crop loss for the purpose of settlement of insurance claims in a transparent and swift manner. This they believe will be acceptable to all stakeholders to avoid delays in settlement of claims as also rectifying anomalies.
The existing process of all manual work involved in the assessment of crop loss is not only a time-consuming and cumbersome process but is adding to the delays in settlement of claims.
Recently, the Agriculture Department had entrusted the work of estimation of crop loss with the help of drones on experimental basis in one village this (rabi/yasangi) season, wherein a Bengaluru-based company has offered technology demonstration free-of-cost. “We have selected 66 acres farm land belonging 20 farmers in Nedunur village of Kandukur mandal in Rangareddy district for the purpose”, a senior officer of the department told The Hindu .
Explaining the reasons for conducting the crop loss estimation with drone technology on experimental basis in that particular village, the officer said while proximity to the City was one reason the other strong reason was cultivation of varied crops such as vegetables, flowers, food crops, cash crops and some fruit plantations in the area identified for the purpose.
The private company with the innovative technology has already done some homework by capturing the position (images) of standing crops such as bitter gourd, brinjal, beans, tomato, ladies finger, chilli, rose, mango, cotton, paddy, maize, wheat, chickpea (bengalgram), sorghum (jowar) and pearl millet (bajra). “They have also offered to provide information on soil health, pest problem and several other parameters besides yield data with the help of the technology”, the officer stated.
Regular crop cutting experiments would also be conducted there to estimate crop yields to cross-check the data to be provided by the technology company and thus help validate the technology for taking it forward for use on a larger scale, the officer said.
When contacted, Agriculture Production Commissioner C. Parthasarathi stated that there was nothing wrong in testing a new technology since it could also help in the estimation of localised, farmer-wise, crop damage/loss as being demanded by the farming community for long. Besides, it could also help overcome the delays in conducting crop cutting experiments for estimation of yields, he noted.
At a recent conference on credit and insurance for sustainable agriculture held here, Union Agriculture Secretary S.K. Pattanayak attributed the delays in settlement of crop insurance claims to delays in conducting crop cutting experiments adding that technology coupled with creation of robust database could help overcome the problem in the times to come.
The Ministry had already set up a committee to improve and rationalise crop cutting experiments to estimate yields.
