Hailing from a small village, Barundi, she has become an inspiration not only for the women of her village but for the neighbouring villages as well. Meet Mandeep Kaur, the first NaMo Drone Didi of the region.
Hailing from a small village, Barundi, she has become an inspiration not only for the women of her village but for the neighbouring villages as well. Meet Mandeep Kaur, the first NaMo Drone Didi of the region. The “NaMo Drone Didi” scheme is a Central initiative aimed at empowering women-led self-help groups (SHGs) by providing them with drone technology for agricultural services like spraying liquid fertilisers and pesticides.
She owns five acres of agricultural land on which she grows vegetables. “I regularly take training from Punjab Agricultural University and update myself about the latest technology. Drone has made the farming much easier for me,” she said.
When asked if they grow wheat and paddy on the fields, she said, “No, only seasonal vegetables. Groundwater is depleting and we need to come out of the wheat-paddy cycle,” said Mandeep Kaur, who along with her husband Kanwardeep Singh is into vegetable farming for the past several years.
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Sharing her journey of becoming Drone Didi, Mandeep said that she was a part of an SHG where she got motivated to enrol for drone pilot training. After a 15-day programme, she started her commercial venture to offer service to spray nano urea and fertiliser on about 150 acres of paddy and sugarcane around her village.
“I got a drone worth Rs 15 lakh for free after the training and now, I charge Rs 300 per acre for the service while the cost of insecticides/pesticides to be sprayed is borne by the farmer. This programme has not only increased agricultural output but also given me new skills and financial freedom,” she added.
Along with farming and drone spraying, she also runs a custom hiring centre, Barundi Agro Farmer Producer Company Limited, where she rents out tractor, rotavator and multi-crop seeder, which has reduced the farming cost by 5 to 7%.
“We are living in the era of science and technology and should adopt new techniques. Drones offer significant benefits in farming, including enhanced crop monitoring, precise resource application, reduced labour costs and increased efficiency,” she said.
The Tribune
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