20Built
National farm insurance
The 2015 proposal
A national farm insurance scheme — automatic on registration, with crop health monitored online and compensation set by satellite with minimal human intervention.
Where it stands in 2026
Realised as PMFBY (2016): YES-TECH does remote-sensing yield estimation and CROPIC collects geo-tagged crop photos. Together they now cover over 50% of insured area, cutting claim timelines from 6–12 months to 2–3 where technology is enabled.
The open gap
Manual crop-cutting experiments still drive final settlement in many districts.
How to sustain & deepen it
Phase out manual crop-cutting where YES-TECH and CROPIC are proven, settle claims on technology-estimated yield within a fixed window, and publish the basis openly so trust in fast, remote settlement grows.
Sources
- ↗ PMFBY — Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana — Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare
- ↓ Government Support to Agricultural Insurance: Challenges and Options for Developing Countries — World Bank (Mahul & Stutley), 2010
- ↗ Ex ante and ex post effects of hybrid index insurance in Bangladesh — Journal of Development Economics (open access via PMC), 2019
- ↗ Leveraging Index Insurance to Protect Farmers from Weather-Based Risk — Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), MIT, 2023
- ↓ Yield Estimation System based on Technology (YES-TECH) Manual under PMFBY — Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India, 2023