"KISAN", a project for better assessment of crop yields that would help in speeding up payments against crop insurance claims by farmers was launched on Monday, an official statement said."The project envisages use of space technology and geoinformatics technology along with high resolution data from drone-based imaging for improvement in yield estimation needed for crop insurance programme," said Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, according to an agriculture ministry release.Crop insurance are usually calculated on the basis of crop cutting experiments, often leading to delays in settlements due to problems in getting timely and accurate data, he added.
The pilot study was proposed to be launched in one district each of Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra during the ongoing Kharif season of this year and two districts each of these states during Rabi season of 2015-16.Balyan said the project would be extended to other parts of the country once the pilot study was successful.The minister also launched an Android-based app that would provide real time data of hailstorms which would help the government to fast assess the damage to standing crops.