State's farmers to get compensation faster with ISRO's remote-sensing mechanism

Kolkata: With a priority to ensure that farmers do not have to wait for long to get compensation in case their crops are damaged, the Mamata Banerjee government has taken a unique move for the technology-based data collection on the quantum of destruction caused due to inclement weather conditions.

With this, remote sensing satellite data acquisition technology of the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will be used for the collection of data of the Kharif season in 2020.

"Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wants there should not be any delay in providing the benefits of 'Bangla Sashya Bima' to the farmers and the technology-based data collection mechanism will ensure that they receive the compensation at the right time," said state Agriculture minister Asish Banerjee.

He further added that the collection of data is the first step to prepare the assessment report based on which a farmer usually gets the compensation. The technology-based system of NRSC will ensure faster data collection compared to that done through field visits.

Earlier, the concerned officials had to undertake field visits to assess the damage caused based on the crop's health factors, which was time-consuming. As a result, preparation of the report used to get delayed and finally used to take much more time for the farmers to get their due compensation. Now, the remote-sensing technology will complete the same task at a minimum required time.

The Chief Minister had introduced the 'Bangla Shasya Bima' under which 46 lakh farmers were covered in the 2019-20 financial year. This year, the drive of ensuring 100 percent coverage to farmers under the scheme will begin. The most important part of the scheme is that the entire cost of the premium is borne by the state government to help farmers get the benefit of crop insurance.

The Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited is the implementing agency for the entire process and the state government has accorded its approval for implementation of the technology-based data collection mechanism.

A high-level meeting in this regard was already held at Nabanna a few days ago in which top brass of the state Agriculture department held discussions with the concerned state-level authorities for faster execution of the task so that farmers get benefits of crop insurance without any delay.

This comes at the time when the state government is also strongly considering to rope in vegetable and fruit growers under the scheme besides paddy, jute and maize cultivators.