Budget 2022 | FM Nirmala Sitharaman doubles down on drones for use in agriculture

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A week after announcing the Drone Shakti project, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman doubled down on the use of drones in modernising agriculture in the general discussion at the Rajya Sabha.

"Bringing in drones as an instrument or as a very effective tool for improving and modernising India's agriculture. When you bring in drone, it has got several adaptations," said Sitharaman in the Rajya Sabha.

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The Drone Shakti project will implement a drones-as-a-service (DRaaS) model, and will seek to encourage local manufacturers and drone services to come together.

The government is also proposing a public-private partnership for the use of Kisan Drones that will be used to help farmers and help them make, "technology-driven assessment of the crop density and also possibly predicting the size of the output".

To help promote Make-in-India incentives for drones, the government also banned the import of foreign drones into the country but the import of components would not be stopped. The only exceptions that will be made for import will be for research, defence and security purposes.

The Drone Shakti project is expected to make the drone industry to at least a $5 billion market. Experts feel these incentives will make it easier for agri-tech companies to blossom in India and help farmers.

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This would also open the gates for use of large unmanned vehicles in other sectors. Drones are in use by the Indian Railways, law enforcement agencies and in road mapping projects.

Last year, the government announced drone policies that made it easier to get approvals and removed several as well. The number of forms required was also reduced to five from 25, and the types of fees required for procurement was also cut down to four from 72.