Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a drone facility for farmers - named Kisan Drones - while presenting the 2022-2023 Union Budget earlier this month.
The drones, she said, would be used to assess crops, digitise land records as well as spray pesticides, insecticides and other nutrients.
Additionally, she said that startups would be promoted to facilitate the 'Drone Shakti' programme that will take forward a number of assessment drives and push the use of drones as a service.
But what she was silent about was how the drones would be financed, and who would be paying for them.
Speaking to The Economic Times, Ramesh Chand, a member of NITI Aayog argued that drone services will be costly only in the initial years. “Over time, it will be cheaper than human labour because of the sheer economies of scale,” Chand said. “Let us give this new application a chance. Suppose a group of farmers decides to hire a drone for one cluster, then the cost per farmer will come down. Also, we have to factor in the cost of human health in manual spraying versus spraying by drones,” he added.
The department of agriculture estimates that the service of a drone that has the capacity to carry a 10 kg payload will cost Rs 350-450 per acre, depending on various factors such as the number of hours drones are used, the size of the farmland, the crop type and the topography, the report added.
The government had last week banned the import of drones with certain exceptions such as for R&D, defence and security purposes as part of efforts to promote domestic manufacturing of drones in the country. The Civil Aviation Ministry, which came out with liberalised drone rules in August 2021, has also scrapped the requirement of a drone pilot licence for operating drones in the country.
According to the report, an Indian made agricultural drone for spraying costs Rs 4-5 lakh. Meanwhile, a Delhi-based company said it can offer drone services for farms for Rs 12-15,000 per day.
Ashutosh Sharma, former secretary in the Department of Science and Technology (DST), told the publication that once the sector opens up, the price of Indian drones will fall drastically. “Once there is demand, more and more Indian companies will manufacture drones. Indian drones will be cheaper than imported ones. Drone-making is a simple technology,” he said.
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