PM Modi govt kicks off 2025 with agri push: Crop insurance scheme gets Rs 69,515 crore boost

According to an official statement, “The decision will help in risk coverage of crops from non-preventable natural calamities for farmers across the country till 2025-26. In addition to the same, for large-scale technology infusion in the implementation of the scheme leading to increasing transparency and claim calculation and settlement, the Union Cabinet has also approved the creation of the Fund for Innovation and Technology (FIAT) with a corpus of Rs.824.77 crore”.

The statement said the fund would be used towards funding technological initiatives under schemes such as Yield Estimation System using Technology (YES-TECH), Weather Information and Network Data Systems (WINDS), etc, as well as research and development studies.

According to the statement, YES-TECH uses Remote Sensing Technology for yield estimation with a minimum 30 per cent weightage to technology-based yield estimates. Nine states — Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka — are implementing it. “Other States are also being on-boarded expeditiously. With the wider implementation of YES-TECH, Crop Cutting Experiments and related issues will be gradually phased out. Under YES-TECH Claim calculation and settlement has been done for 2023-24. Madhya Pradesh has adopted 100% technology-based yield estimation,” it added.

WINDS, the statement said, envisages setting up Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) at the block level and Automatic Rain Gauges (ARGs) at the Panchayat level. “Under WINDS, a 5 times increase in current network density is envisaged to develop hyper-local weather data. Under the initiative, only data rental costs are payable by Central and State Governments,” it said.

While Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh Puducherry, Assam, Odisha, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, and Rajasthan are implementing WINDS, other states have expressed willingness to use it.

“WINDS could not be implemented by States during 2023-24 (1st year as per EFC) due to various background preparatory and planning work required before tendering. Accordingly, the Union Cabinet has approved 2024-25 as the first year of implementation of WINDS as compared to 2023-24 earlier to give benefit to State Governments with higher central fund sharing in a 90:10 ratio,” it said.

“All efforts are made and will continue to be made to saturate all farmers of North Eastern States on priority. To this extent, the centre shares 90% of the premium subsidy with the Northeastern States. However, due to the scheme being voluntary and low gross cropped area in the Northeastern States, flexibility has been given to avoid surrender of funds and for reallocation in other development projects and schemes with fund requirement,” it added.