Role of GIS in rural development: strengthening agriculture insurance
Student name: Ms Sagarika Ghosal
Guide: Dr Chander Kumar Singh
Year of completion: 2017
Host Organisation: ESRI India Technologies Ltd.
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Brijesh Chorotia
Abstract: Agriculture is the backbone of our country. The people employed in this sector, the farmers, are
unfortunately always at the mercy of nature. While they may have had good years, the bad ones
hit them too hard. This leads to a rise in cases of farmer suicides and also that of migration to
urban areas in search of a better livelihood. The productive labour force in the villages is lost
due to weather related risks. Agricultural insurance is perfect for such a scenario where the
farmer cannot afford high premiums but cannot do without insurance either. However, misuse
and fraud has also made way into this. Some farmers take advantage of the fact that the very
foundation of their insurance is ambiguity. They are able to fool the insurance companies in
number of ways leading to large financial losses to the agencies. This research tries to study the
ways in which GIS software and Web GIS can address the very issue of over insurance in
agriculture sector. A few mobile applications have been employed in order to enhance the
verification process of a claim. ArcGIS Online has been used to emphasize on benefits of web
GIS. The end result is a more authentic survey conducted to verify a claim, so as to minimize
incidence of incorrect calculation and over insurance. Better crop insurance will finally allow
farmers to continue residing in villages as they will have a better livelihood because of the
reduction in the fear factor.
Key Words: rural development, agriculture, insurance, GIS, mobile application
