Maharashtra government has postponed the decision to use Normalised Difference vegetation index (NDVI) to assess crop loss due to drought and excessive rains till January 2025 owing to disagreement within the Cabinet.

In a Cabinet meeting held on Tuesday Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis reportedly pushed the use of modern satellite technology and use of NDVI to access the damage to crops.

Despite his push, the Agriculture department has conveyed that implementation of NDVI will not be possible.
“Ultimately, it was agreed to implement the system from January 2025,” an official who attended the meeting said.

On February 5, 2024, Maharashtra cabinet had decided to use NDVI as the criteria to access crop losses.

Replying to the Relief and Rehabilitation department’s proposal for relief package worth Rs 495 crore for crops damaged due to unseasonal rain and hailstorm in December 2023, the Agriculture department on May 24, 2024 conveyed negative remarks about NDVI.

According to the cabinet note presented in the meeting, the Agriculture department’s letter said, “Before finalising criterion of NDVI to fix losses due to unseasonal rain and hailstorm, a certain functioning will have to finalised. And a new system will have to set up to determine its accuracy which will take time…therefore in present condition it will not be possible to use NDVI criterion.”

In July 2024, the cabinet sub-committee also followed the Agriculture department’s recommendation and said that existing norms to access losses should be used instead of NDVI.

On Tuesday, when the proposal was brought once again in front of the Cabinet, it was decided to implement the NDVI system but it will be operational from January 2025.

NDVI quantifies vegetation health using sensor data. It will stop the physical panchnamas which often led to discrepancies.

Source - https://indianexpress.com