Bhubaneswar, Dec. 18: Insurance companies in India have not been able to come up with proper crop insurance schemes as the risk factor weighed heavily on them, according to a paper presented at an international conference attended by operational research scientists.
The risk factor weighed heavily on the insurance companies as they did not have any historical data on which they could build a risk assessment model, Prof. S.Dharmaraja of IIT, Delhi and Prof. Vidyottama Jainy of Central University of Rajasthan, said in the paper titled “Crop Insurance in India: A Mathematical Review”.
The paper discussed at the three-day 48th annual convention of the Operational Research Society of India (ORSI), being held at the SOA University, said that gaps existed between various crop insurance schemes. The mathematical techniques for crop insurance used all over the world were based on probabilistic approach, optimization approach and statistical approach, it said.
The central government, concerned with the welfare of the farming community, have either encouraged or directly participated in the setting up of risk sharing institutions. Crop insurance is one of those ways by which farmers could stabilize farm income and investment against disastrous effect of losses due to natural hazards or low market places, the paper said.
“The findings of this review clearly show that insurance companies in India are not able to come out with proper crop insurance schemes for the simple reason that the risk is too unpredictable; there is no historical data available on which any risk assessment model could be built,” it said.
Operations Research studies were generally carried out to find various alternate feasible and optimal solutions which provided guideline for decision makers for taking effective decisions. The OR techniques used to solve practical problems included optimization and simulation studies, speakers said.
The inaugural function of the convention was addressed by Prof. Asish Kumar Chattopadhyay, President of ORSI and Prof. Arabinda Tripathy, Program Chair of the event. Prof. R.N.Subudhi, President of the Bhubaneswar chapter of ORSI and Prof. P.K.Sahu, Dean of the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) also spoke.
Prof. Srikanta Patnaik, Convenor of the conference, said that 150 papers had been received from all over the country for the convention of which 103 had been chosen for presentation. Springer, the German publishing house, had agreed to publish a book containing the papers, he said.
