Satellites to aid rollout of crop insurance

ISRO’s constellation of satellites will be pressed into service to assess crop damage to ensure faster compensation payout under the Centre’s newly launched crop insurance scheme.

The remote sensing satellites moving over the country will be used to prepare cadastral maps, which will carry time-tagged crop information. In case of bad monsoon or excess rain, satellite images before and after crop damage will be used to assess the yield loss.

Officials from the Departments of Space and Agriculture made detailed presentations to the Prime Minister’s Office recently on plans to use space technologies to give a boost to the agriculture sector.

“We have satellites that give images with resolution ranging from 5.8 metres to 50 metres. We intend to use these in providing inputs to implement the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana,” a senior government official said.