Young farmers to be trained to operate agricultural drones; will be given licences

Parveen Arora

Karnal, June 30

With unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones emerging as a powerful tool in the agricultural sector, the state government has decided to train young farmers to operate agricultural drones, which will not only help farmers to judiciously use pesticides, insecticides, weedicides and micronutrients but also in procuring good yield. As per experts, the use of drones will also reduce the risk of getting affected from chemicals to a great extent.

The Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department is inviting applications from farmers who are members of farmer producer organisations (FPOs) or custom hiring centres (CHCs), to whom training will be given by the Remote Pilot Training Organisation (RPTO), a body of the Drone Imaging and Information Service of Haryana Limited (DRIISHYA), headquartered in Karnal.

As per officials, Haryana is the first state to have a separate body, namely DRIISHYA, for drone training.

“DRIISHYA has demonstrated its proficiency by successfully demonstrating various proofs of concepts (POC). One of them is urea and pesticides spray. Government wants to initially train 500 farmers to undertake drone-based agri-applications. They will also be able to handle problems like locust attacks,” said a senior official.

Farmers will not only be given licences approved from the Civil Aviation Department, but also be trained to operate agricultural drones.

“This step is being taken up under a pilot project by the department. Interested farmers can apply on the portal of the department. The opportunity will be given on a first-come, first-served basis,” said Aditya Dabas, Deputy Director Agriculture (DDA).

The training will be given free of cost to farmers, which otherwise costs around Rs 50,000 per candidate. This step will help motivate youths to indulge in agriculture, said an official.

The training session will last 9-10 days. Five to six days of training will be imparted for licence and an additional three to four days of training would be given to operate agricultural drones, said Wing Commander Giriraj Singh Punia, (retd.), chief operating officer, DRIISHYA. The RPTO has two instructors and over 30 farmers would be trained at a time, he added.

“The use of drones will bring a revolutionary change in the agriculture sector. The major advantage of the technology is to save time and an effective use of resources to increase yield,” an official said.