India is a country which incorporates 12 crore farmers, and according to the World Bank’s 2015 report, 60.45 percent of the nation’s land is utilised to cater the agriculture & forestry. These 12 crore farmers nearly form 25 percent of the workforce out of the total 48 crore workforce of the country. The farm sector is deemed to be pre-eminent for the nation’s population depends on it to sustain their nourishment.
The agricultural sector & the small or marginal farmers have been experiencing diverse adversity for more than a decade. In an era of digital identities, technology-based innovation spurs the system of equitable and righteous direct benefit transfer in the agro sector for the marginal farmers.
The Current Scenario of Grass-Level Farmers in India
The Government of India has enrolled various schemes to benefit the farmers, including the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), multiple crop insurance schemes such as National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS) and many more to benefit the farmers. But the big question lying here is — ‘Are the small and marginalized farmers obtaining the benefits they shall receive?’
The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare under PMFBY has categorized farmers into two major brackets, the loanee farmers and the non-loanee farmers. The loanee farmers are the ones who have availed the agricultural loans through various insurance companies while the non-loanee farmers are the ones who have not taken any loans.
As per the logistics, a year before floating PMFBY i.e. in 2015–16, only 28 lakh farmers have plumped on for the loans voluntarily. However, after the launch of PMFBY, the number of framers opting for loans deliberately raised to 1.38 crore in the year 2016–17 compared to the year 2015–16.
There has been an increase in the ratio of farmers opting for loans, but the small and marginal farmers are not able to get the benefit, be it technological lag or identity scams. Hence, a secure and scalable biometric technology seems to be desirable for the agro-based insurance industry facing the challenges related to sham insurance claims and transfer to the wrong accounts.
The WRMS said through the findings of the survey “41.3 per cent of the farmers cited lack of necessary documents as the major challenge to get insurance and the other challenges were small landholdings (21.4 percent), lack of assistance from government officials (26 percent) and inefficiency of online systems (17.3 percent).”
Introducing biometric identification and verification processes to verify the loanee and link their beneficiary account to the biometric data can heave a sigh of relief for the farmers kept away from their benefits.
Biometric Modality — Lifeline of Small/Marginal Farmers
In every nook and corner of the country, large farmers are granted the benefits by prejudiced rural banks while the small, marginalize and medium-sized farmers have to bear the brunt of sham insurance claims. The marginal farmers have been scared to death by the up swinging incidents of fake insurance claims.
“The real benefit to small and marginal farmers, with less than 2 hectares of landholding size, will not come from loan waiver programs. This is because only 15% of small farmers have access to institutional credit, and loan waiver schemes typically cater to farmers who have availed formal loans”, Nilanjan Banik, professor at Bennett University argued in an EPW journal.
In the year 2018, the records had a fair amount of cases of fake claims wherein the farmers have not opted for the loans of a larger amount or haven’t opted for any loan yet there was an implication of outstanding amount indication against their names.
Recently, a farmer lodged an FIR against the representatives of the co-operative society under the farm loan waiver schemes over sham claims. In an FIR, a farmer stated that though he had managed to settle up his complete loan no later than March 31, 2018, it still reveals a pending loan of worth Rs 4.38 lakh against his name. In a similar case, the small/marginal farmer accuses three more people of the Gorzamar agriculture co-operative society of treachery.
The marginal farmers have been complaining that they had never taken any loans and yet there was this pending amount shown against their names. Engulfing the biometrics technology well with farmers’ loan waiver and insurance schemes will serve the security purpose of the farmers. Moreover, biometric characteristics of the beneficiaries shall be taken to identify them once their Aadhaar card is linked directly with their account.
Role of Biometrics in Agro Sector
Biometrics technology is believed to be the twenty-first-century way of identifying and authenticating individuals through portable biometric devices at anywhere and anytime. One can bifurcate the biometric technology into two types based on its modality, namely behavioural and physiological biometrics. The physiological biometrics will include fingerprint, iris, facial, palm-vein and DNA recognition while the behavioural biometrics will comprise of voice and signature recognition.
In the wake of the current scenario, incorporating biometrics in the farming sector to ease the small, marginal & mid-sized farmers will become a breather for the agriculturists as farmers will be able to receive their benefit righteously.
According to Ashok Gulati, an economist with the think-tank ICRIER, “if the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana scheme is to achieve its most critical goal — timely payouts to farmers — it can’t fly without a raft of high-end technological fixes.”
According to the logistics, during the year 2016–17 almost 5.72 crore farmers got the insurance while the claim ratio was only 75 percent. Furthermore, in the next year, 4.99 crore farmers got insured while the claim ratio jumped up to 87 percentage. The results clearly show that there was sink in the number of farmers availing for insurance in the Kharif year 2017 compared to the previous year, causing a rise in the claim ratio.
If we look through the lens of small and marginal farmers, they are not getting the benefit of insurance claims besides they did not even receive their right to obtain benefits under direct benefit transfer (DBT) program. Many times, the amount paid goes to the account of the wrong person. It is, therefore, the cutting-edge biometrics technology that provides a robust and reliable solution for these entire crannies in the farm insurance sector.
To scrape off the ghost beneficiaries, in April 2013 the government decided to extend the direct benefits transfer (DBT) and asked the farmers to link the Aadhaar with their respective bank accounts. Moreover, Biometrics is all about providing uniform insurance benefits and legitimate loan waivers to the farmers. Even more, it also ensures that the identities of the beneficiaries are verified precisely so that it can provide the benefits to the marginal farmers along the right lines.
Identity Matters
Biometric technology adds an extra layer of security with its ability to identify, verify and authenticate the identity of a person. Linking Aadhaar to the Jan Dhan account of the farmers and availing the services on confirming their identities is an ideal solution to fix all the chinks in the farmers’ insurance and loan waivers.
To streamline the process of providing insurance to the small & marginal farmers, advanced & innovative technology-based identity securing solution will open a window of opportunity for the economically weak and remote farmers. Thus a stable, secure and seamless biometrics technology will enable the ground-reality farmers to get the benefits of insurance and loan waivers by eliminating the fake insurance claims made by ghost beneficiaries.
Payouts to the righteous grass-level farmers cannot soar without extravagant technological adoption. And this is why the biometric fingerprint, iris or facial sensors come into the picture for confirming the identity of the beneficiaries through their Aadhaar card as their Aadhaar number is linked directly with the bank accounts.
Biometrics is bringing a wave of a shift in every single industry and now is the time for Agro industry to adopt the latest technology for imparting the secure and equal benefit of the rights to all the small/marginal as well as mid-sized farmers.
