Who will pay for the kisan drone?

Drones have flown into India’s fields pretty fast. It was only in August 2021 that the ministry of civil aviation liberalised the drone use policy, allowing certain types of drones to fly without prior permission. Soon after, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare published the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the use of drones in spraying pesticides in agricultural, forestry and non-cropped areas.
Last month, the department amended its policy to include drone subsidy proposals — so that Farmers Producers Organisations (FPOs), for instance, can receive a grant of up to 75% of the cost of an agriculture drone. Then in her budget speech, the FM said kisan drones will be used for crop assessment, digitisation of land records and spraying of insecticides and nutrients. The government is offering a helping hand – one, with a small budget to experiment with drones and, two, by dumping some restr ..