The state agriculture department would be using drones, remote sensing technology (RST) and smartphones to decide the amount of claim for crop insurance under the Centre's much talked about Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana(PMFBY). The state government's proposal to use of modern technology has come in the wake the petitions filed before the Punjab and Haryana high court questioning the scheme and accuracy of the crop cutting experiment (CCE) presently carried by the state agriculture department under the scheme. CEE is the method used to arrive at the possible loss to farmers in case of crop damage. The matter has reached before the HC after petition was filed by Roop Chand Dalal and several other farmers from various districts of Haryana. Responding the petition, a detailed reply was submitted on Monday before the HC by D K Behera, special secretary, Haryana agriculture department. The government has claimed that use of mobile phone to improve data quality and timelines to increase the reliability, accuracy and speed of CCE data, mandatory use of smart phones/hand held devices for capturing images, location of the CCE and for online transmission of data on centralized server would be done. Claiming that move would help in faster compilation of data and quick claim settlements, state has contended that RST and drones may also be used for the purpose of increasing accuracy and speed of yield estimation through CCEs. The cost of using technology for conduct of CCE process specially purchase of smart phones will be shared between central government/state government on 50:50 basis, claims the state. Development is significant, as the current process of CCE carried by the authorities was being questioned even by agriculture officers of the department, who had resorted to strike in September 2016. They had claimed that present method of carrying out CCE lacked reliability which may affect the claims settlement of farmers in future. CCE is required to be done for all notified crops in the notified insurance units to assess the crop yield.   Further defending the scheme, Behera has claimed that keeping in view of the continuous deplorable conditions and financial hardship of the farmers, it was considered by the Centre to formulate a broad farmers-friendly crop insurance scheme so as to provide them financial sustainability and to minimize the suicidal deaths of farmers owning to crop losses due to weather vagaries.   The petition filed in 2016 had alleged that no machinery has been set up or operationalized by Haryana and the insurance companies and the banks, and the banks are going to deduct the insurance premium even for the coming Rabi crops for 2016 as they had done for kharif crop 2016, and will continue to do so for kharif crop 2017, and thereafter.   "As per the notification it will be calculated by comparing the threshold yield with the actual yield obtained through CEE. No such experiments were conducted as per the scheme for assessing the loss in yield, therefore there is no possibility of any compensation to the farmers hence, the whole exercise in the implementation of PMFBY is a fraud on the farmers," petitioners has argued.   The matter would now come up for hearing on Thursday. Source - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com