Mumbai, Aug 27 (Mumbai Mirror): Maharashtra is the only state in the country which has taken the initiative to insure farmers individually and assessed their losses at the village as well as the personal level, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said here today.

"I believe that Maharashtra is the first state in the country which has started a pilot project to insure individual farmers in 500 villages," Fadnavis said, while addressing a gathering of insurance sector experts from across the country in the city here.

"Losses are assessed at the village level and not at the revenue circle level, and also at the individual farmer level. I think that this is the way forward," Fadnavis said. He was speaking as chief guest at the concluding ceremony of the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Insurance Institute of the India, which was attended by Vice-President of India M H Ansari and Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao.

Fadnavis spoke about how the state machinery had used technological advancements to address issues.
"We are not behind in using technological advancements and right now we are using drones to map disasters and losses," he said.

Referring to the drought-like conditions in parts of the state, the Chief Minister said that due to sudden climate change, agriculture sector needs more risk management and risk mitigation.

"We have seen a lot of disasters taking place in the agriculture sector, but insurance schemes available in the market have been unable to attract farmers," he said.