Tamil Nadu’s first batch of women drone flyers aids in agriculture
The Hindu
Nandini and Saranya, women drone pilots in Tamil Nadu, empower rural farming communities through innovative drone technology.
Nandini Sugumar, 27, a postgraduate in mathematics, has always had a fascination for drones.
Having only seen the gadget whirring overhead at weddings, she is now one among the women drone pilots who have been trained to expertly manoeuvre drones to assist farming operations in the predominantly agrarian Kallakurichi district.
A fortnight before Pongal, residents of Devapandalam, a non-descript village near Sankarapuram watched in awe as a drone hovered above a sugarcane field spraying fertilisers from its payload. The typical sortie covered the entire sugarcane field in just seven minutes before returning to earth amid loud cheers from the villagers.
Having graduated as a skilled drone pilot, Nandini is excited over embracing technology to meet a wide range of farmers’ requirements, whether it is the use of fertilisers, pesticides or watering.
Nandini is among the first batch of women self-help group members from Tamil Nadu selected under the Central government’s ‘Namo Drone Didi’ scheme.
The scheme is aimed at empowering rural women by training them to be drone pilots and making them integral stakeholders of the local farming supply chain.
Nandini learnt about the Drone Didi scheme through a fertiliser supply chain in Kallakurichi and applied without a second thought. After being identified as a woman SHG member by the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women, she was shortlisted among the clusters in Kallakurichi district.
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