committee on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
According to a committee set up by NITI Aayog, drones are better
than satellites in crop insurance schemes. The committee was tasked by NITI
Aayog with studying how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Why drones are better than satellites?
The current satellites would not be sufficient due to their
non-availability during cloud cover, limited revisit possibility during the
crop season and high price.
How UAVs are better?
UAVs gather data from low heights [i.e., below the cloud] and at
very high resolution.
Other recommendations made by the committee:
- Sharing cadastral (land’s location, ownership, tenure) details, Aadhaar card and bank account details should be made mandatory for effective crop insurance policies.
- Farmer field coordinates be made mandatory for issuance of insurance policy. This will help in tracking the crop field throughout the crop season without much ground monitoring, and, any kind of loss can readily be verified from satellite data.
- Pilot surveys that can estimate varying risk profiles for different regions of the country, and that for schemes such as PMFBY, drones are a better bet than satellite imagery.
Way ahead:
The committee is expected to submit its report to the National
Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) shortly.
