Kathmandu. In the Indian state of Maharashtra, more than 4 lakh insurance applications have been rejected under the Pradhan Mantri Bali Bima Yojana every year. In a written reply to the Legislative Council, Minister of State for Agriculture Manikrao Kokate said that 430,000 applications for agricultural crop insurance proposed in the autumn of 2024 were rejected.
He said that the rejection of insurance applications included claims of planting crops on public land, municipal land, areas exceeding actual ownership, and insurance proposals for ineligible crops.
While 430,000 insurance applications were rejected under the crop insurance scheme in the autumn of 2024, 285,000 applications were rejected in the same season in 2023.
The central government is using the Earth observation satellite system to investigate fake insurance proposals. The farmer must mention the location of the field where the crop is grown in terms of latitude and longitude in the insurance proposal. Based on the latitude and longitude mentioned in the insurance proposal and the total area of the field, whether the crop is grown or not is confirmed on the basis of satellite images. In the event that the crop is not grown in the specified location in the insurance proposal or is cultivated only in a limited area or the land is public use land, the government will reject the insurance proposal.
Since the launch of the Autumn Crop Insurance Scheme in India in 2016, Maharashtra has seen a large participation of farmers. For Kharif 2024 alone, about 1.5 million farmers had applied under the Crop Insurance Scheme.
