Discuss how digital platforms and animal identification technologies can improve transparency and claim settlement in agricultural and livestock insurance.

Farmers trust insurance only if claims are settled quickly and fairly. On 28 September 2026 the Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying (DAHD) launches its Livestock Insurance Portal for policy issuance, claim processing, monitoring and reporting [1]. Together with the digital shift in crop insurance, this shows that technology can reduce delay and fraud, provided checks on the ground keep pace.

Digital platforms: speed and transparency

• Single window: the DAHD portal brings policies, claims and reporting onto one platform in 13 languages (11 regional plus Hindi and English) [1]. This leaves less room for intermediaries to delay or decide cases at will.
• Direct payment: the DigiClaim module on the National Crop Insurance Portal pays claims straight into farmers' bank accounts. Farmers can track progress on their mobile phones [2].
• Loss assessment by technology: YES-TECH uses remote sensing to estimate crop yields. This reduces disputes over manual crop-cutting data [3].
• Real-time monitoring helps the Centre, States and insurers work together [1].

Animal identification: proving which animal died

• RFID tagging (radio chips read by a scanner) was approved under the National Livestock Mission alongside existing tags [5]. Each animal gets a unique identity, which curbs duplicate or false claims.
• Linking databases: the Bharat Pashudhan Portal already holds vaccination and breeding records [6]. If insurance records are linked to it, each claim can be checked against the animal's existing history.
• Wider cover: reliable identification supports recent reforms. Farmers now pay only 15% of the premium, and the subsidy cap has risen to 10 cattle units per household [4]. In a single year, 21.01 lakh animals were insured [7].

Limits that remain

• Physical checks: a veterinarian still has to verify the dead animal. Lost or unreadable tags bring disputes back.
• Digital divide: hill and North-Eastern herders get the 90:10 Centre–State funding [4] but have the weakest connectivity.
• Missing data: public figures report animals insured and funds released, not claims paid or how long payment took [7].
• Dependence on States: the subsidy reaches farmers only if the State budgets its share [4].

Digital platforms and animal identification together turn insurance paperwork into a service that can be checked and traced. Next steps: publish State-wise claim-settlement data, link insurance records to Bharat Pashudhan, and let veterinarians and Common Service Centres file claims for farmers. This would advance SDG 1.5, which aims to make the poor more resilient to shocks, and make insurance a real safety net for farmers.