A month before farmers began their protest along the Punjab-Haryana border, with the police dropping tear gas shells from drone-based launchers, Ram Raji, 36, had been issued a drone and an electric autorickshaw by a fertilizer company. Raji and several women like her were to spray liquid pesticide over the ripening wheat crop. But when the protests broke out, the drone operator from Qila Zafargarh village in Haryana’s Jind district was disappointed.
“There was a 12-day Internet shutdown in the districts bordering Punjab and Haryana, including Jind. While working in the fields, I need an Internet connection for the GPS signal connecting to the drone,” she explains, standing in front of a field of wheat, and locking an acre to be sprayed on her remote control. February is a crucial month for spraying nano urea over the wheat crop, right before it flowers, and now, farmers feel it’s too late, Raji says. Each workday lost also means a loss of income.
Raji is one of the initial 1,000 drone didis selected by fertilizer companies from across India to be trained under the Central government’s Namo Drone Didi scheme to fly agricultural drones that will spray fertilizers over crops. Armed with a pilot’s licence from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), they are meant to be seen as changemakers.
