Standing on the boundary of a wheat farm in Mehandi Ganj space of Rajatalab, round 15 km from Varanasi, Neetu Singh, a mom of three and a housewife, is spraying nano urea on the crop with slightly flying machine: a drone geared up to hold the answer.
Neetu Singh operates the drone n Mehandi Ganj space just lately (HT Photograph)
It’s a sight that’s frequent now, however it wasn’t as soon as so. There was suspicion, hypothesis and far hesitation amongst farmers to the deployment of this know-how over their standing crops. It took numerous convincing however they gave it a attempt ultimately.
This began an agricultural revolution of types, saving money and time, whereas getting the girl drone operator money to complement the household revenue.
Neetu controls the drone with effectivity and covers an acre of crop in simply 10 minutes, whereas handbook spraying to cowl the identical space takes two to 4 hours.
Asha Devi, a housewife from Harahua, too, operates a drone with confidence. Neetu and Asha are among the many 9 girls from villages of Varanasi, who in March 2024, underwent a fortnight’s coaching in working drones in Prayagraj, beneath the Namo Drone Didi scheme by the centre that empowers women-led self-help teams (SHGs) by equipping them with drone know-how as utilized to agriculture.
The coaching launched them to drones and the know-how related to it, and find out how to fly a drone. Specialists educated them in working drones, particularly spraying nano urea answer on crops.
Neetu says, “Each of us was given a drone for free. And we embarked on a new journey.”
The start was fairly difficult since farmers weren’t able to get their crops sprayed by a drone. However the girls steadily satisfied the farmers. They usually began getting work.
“In the beginning, we had to convince the farmers… I flew drones just to demonstrate how the spraying of nano urea and pesticides on several acres would take place… it helped us convince farmers. Gradually farmers accepted it…. Now, the farmers contact me over the mobile phone to spray their crops using a drone. They call us Drone Didi. I get ₹300 per acre for spraying nano urea by drone.”
The per-beegha cost is ₹200.
Neetu says that the drone has reworked her life, whereas taking care of her three youngsters and household, she makes a residing. It has infused recent confidence into her.
Throughout this season, she sprayed 148 litres of nano urea and 58.6 litres of pesticides in 300 acres of farms and made ₹75,000.
Asha Devi made an incomes of ₹20,000 in three to 4 months and lined 196 acres of farms utilizing 52 liters of urea and 34 litres of pesticides whereas working as a Drone Didi.
She says that she couldn’t earn higher as a result of within the Harahua space, there should not many huge farmers. Small farmers don’t get the spraying completed by drone.
She suggests, “The government should launch a campaign to create awareness about the benefits of spraying through drones. It saves the time of farmers. They can utilise that time in other work.”
Manju Prasad of Cholapur, Sidhur of Badagaon, Urmila Devi of Kashi Vidyapeeth, Anita Devi of Pindara, Reena Devi and Sangeeta Devi of Sevapuri, Sunita Maurya of Harahua are the opposite girls educated as Drone Didis, mentioned Sravan Kumar Singh, district mission supervisor, Nationwide Mission of Rural Livelihood, Varanasi.
Singh added that Hindustan Urvarak and Rasayan Ltd (HURL) and IFFCO offered drones to them freed from value.
The Scheme
Namo Drone Didi is a central sector scheme aiming to offer drones to fifteen,000 chosen girls’s SHG members in the course of the interval from 2024-25 to 2025-2026 for spraying of liquid fertilisers and pesticides. This initiative is predicted to generate an extra revenue of not less than ₹1 lakh per yr, contributing to financial empowerment and sustainable livelihood technology.