With Budget push, drones to create $5-bn market

Vijay C Roy

Chandigarh, February 4

After the notification of liberalised Drone Rules by the Ministry of Civil Aviation in August 2021, the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will ensure growth for the drone industry in the coming years. According to industry, the initiative will help in making drone sector a $5-billion market.

The Budget has paved the way for using drones in various sectors, including agriculture. The Finance Minister said use of ‘Kisan Drones’ will be promoted for crop assessment, digitisation of land records and spraying insecticides and nutrients.

Vipul Singh, founder & CEO of Aarav Unmanned Systems, said: “The Budget duly recognises the key role drone technology is playing in solving some really tough-to-solve problems for sectors like land records, infrastructure, mining, disaster management and agriculture.” Further, the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme and subsidy for drones for agriculture will give a fillip to the sector.

“The ‘Drone Shakti’ programme, announced in the Budget, will strengthen the sector further, making it at least a $5-billion market in India. This will enable further innovation in the sector and fuel growth with the adoption of drone technology and ‘drone-as-a-service’,” he said.

The opportunities, emphasis, and support being provided to this emerging sector will help drone startups extend their portfolio across agriculture, digitisation of land records, railways, mining, renewable energy and telecom and will lead to paradigm shift for a new Digital India.”

According to experts, these measures will make it easier for agri-tech companies to reach out to an expanded set of farmers. With this Budget, one can say the gap between Indian farmers and prosperity is getting bridged with each passing day.

Experts feel with this announcement the country will witness the use of large unmanned aircraft systems across sectors and are expected to boost a wave of technology in the farm sector.

Currently, drones are being used by Railways, law enforcement agencies and for survey of new road projects. Recently, the Survey of India has awarded a project worth $2 million to deploy nearly 44 drones to map the state of Haryana.