Engage start-ups in soil health card initiative: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday directed the Agriculture Ministry to provide soil health cards to farmers in their local dialect for better understanding and involve start-up entrepreneurs in this exercise.
 
Reviewing the progress of the soil health card and crop insurance scheme – two flagship initiatives of the government, the prime minister was informed that over 90 lakh farmers had benefited from the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana that was launched in January last year.
 
Officials said claims of over Rs 7,700 crore had already been paid during the Kharif and Rabi seasons last year.
 
With the government's thrust on entrepreneurship, Modi asked the officials to explore the possibility of involving start-ups in making available hand-held devices for soil testing, which is currently carried out in laboratories.
“The Prime Minister also emphasized that soil health cards should be printed in the local dialect of the area so that the farmers are able to read and understand them easily,” an official statement said.
 
At the meeting, Modi asked officials to ensure that appropriate checks were undertaken for variation, both within a sampling grid, and across different soil testing labs. “This would help ensure quality in the reports,” he added.
 
The prime minister was informed that 16 states and Union Territories have completed the first cycle of distribution and the remaining were likely to complete the same within weeks.
 
On the ambitious crop insurance scheme, officials said they were using smartphones, remote sensing satellite data and drones to assess the crop damage while settling insurance claims.
 
In the earlier crop insurance schemes, there have been some instances of farmers submitting fraudulent claims with respect to crop yield data and crop loss. For this, physical assessments used to be carried in locations to determine the extent of the loss, which too was not accurate.