The government is aware of the fact that climate change is leading to drought and desertification, exacerbating farmers' distress across the country, including in Punjab, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ramnath Thakur told the Rajya Sabha.
Location-specific climate-resilient technologies have been demonstrated in clusters of three to four villages within climatically vulnerable districts of Punjab — Faridkot, Bathinda, Gurdaspur and Moga — selected by Krishi Vigyan Kendras through a participatory approach, the minister said.
Capacity-building programmes are being conducted to enhance adaptive capacity, resilience to climatic variability and to develop innovative institutional mechanisms at the village level to help communities adapt to climate change, he added.
Under the National Policy on Disaster Management, the primary responsibility for disaster management, including the disbursement of relief assistance at the ground level, lies with the respective state governments, Thakur told the Rajya Sabha.
These governments undertake relief measures following natural calamities using the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), which is allocated to them in accordance with the Government of India's approved guidelines. The central government supplements these efforts by providing logistical and financial support, the minister stated.
Additional financial assistance is made available through the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) in cases of disasters classified as being of a 'severe nature', following an assessment by an Inter-Ministerial Central Team. However, financial assistance under the SDRF and NDRF is provided as relief, not compensation, Thakur said.
The Maharashtra government has disbursed approximately Rs 27,243.42 crore between 2020-21 and 2024-25 (up to March 19, 2025) to compensate farmers for crop losses caused by unseasonal rains, heavy rainfall and drought, he added.
A systematic assessment of the Farmers’ Distress Index (FDI) is not yet available for the entire country, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Bhagirath Choudhary told the Rajya Sabha. However, a pilot study titled Agrarian Distress and PM Fasal Bima Yojana: An Analysis of Rainfed Agriculture was conducted in 2020-21 and 2021-22 to support farmers in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
The FDI accounts for multiple causes of distress, including climate variability, price volatility and farmers' limited capacity to manage risks, the minister said.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) report India: Health of the Nation's States, published in 2017, the proportion of deaths due to non-communicable diseases in India increased from 37.9 per cent in 1990 to 61.8 per cent in 2016, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Jagat Prakash Nadda told the Lok Sabha. The full report is available at healthdata.org.
According to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21), the prevalence of overweight (weight-for-height) among children under the age of five is 3.4 per cent, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel told the Lok Sabha. International studies indicate that the prevalence of childhood overweight varies across regions and countries.
The government has launched a 100-day TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan across 347 priority districts in 33 states and Union territories to accelerate efforts towards achieving United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goals related to tuberculosis (TB), Patel told the Lok Sabha.
Between December 7, 2024 and March 14, 2025, the campaign screened 90.2 million vulnerable individuals, identified 301,000 new TB cases and successfully completed treatment for 158,000 TB patients. Under the National TB Elimination Programme, a multi-pronged strategy has been implemented to ensure that patients with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) complete their treatment, the minister stated.
According to the ICMR–National Cancer Registry Programme, the estimated number of cancer cases in India for 2025 is 15,69,793, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Prataprao Jadhav told the Lok Sabha. The Global Cancer Observatory, under the International Agency for Research on Cancer, projects that the number of cancer cases in India will rise to 22,18,694 by 2040.
According to the latest National Health Accounts estimates for 2021-22, the per capita out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) on healthcare in India was Rs 2,600 for that year, Patel told the Lok Sabha. India ranks 69th among 189 countries in OOPE per capita, measured in purchasing power parity (international dollars) for 2021.