ROURKELA: Just a couple of years back, the daybreak in Bandhbahal village of Sundargarh district would have seen Shantilata Sahu scampering around doing household chores. But today, as sun rises, the 34-year-old carries a drone at the back of her autorickshaw and sets out for the fields. She is the only woman in all of Sundargarh district licensed to fly an agricultural drone.
Shantilata is what government schemes dream of producing but rarely do - a genuine transformation story. In a tribal-dominated district with over 3.02 lakh hectare cultivable land, she has carved out an unlikely identity as a high-tech agriculture entrepreneur.
Shantilata always had the qualities of leadership and the will to do things different. Even when she was a common rural housewife, cooking food for the family and keeping the home clean, she was a multi-tasker. She not only helped her husband Madan Sahu, a farmer and fertiliser trader in his work but was also an active member of the local Maa Durga self-help group (SHG).
The turning point in her life arrived in 2023, when she was approached by IFFCO field officer Pratyush Behera with an opportunity to become a Namo Drone Didi. As part of the centrally-sponsored Lakhpati Didi scheme, the Namo Drone Didi programme is designed to equip rural women, essentially members of women SHGs, with drones for spraying fertilisers and pesticides to enhance farm efficiency, promote technology adoption in agriculture and economically empower them.
“Initially, I was apprehensive. But, it was my husband Madan who pushed me forward. He encouraged me to go ahead,” she says.
As she decided to go for it, she first made a point to obtain the necessary qualifications and completed BSc in computer science in distant education mode. “My qualification enhanced my confidence and significantly helped me to be a remote pilot,” she explains.
After IFFCO sponsored her candidature, she was among 30 women from Odisha called for interviews at IFFDC’s Cuttack office in September 2023. Those who cleared it were sent to Pune later that year for a rigorous 15-day training programme at the DGCA-approved PBC Aero Hub. They had theory classes, simulator sessions, actual flying practice and the practical handling of drones from pre-flight checks to emergency protocols.
Then after two rounds of examinations, 12 of the 30 made the cut. Shantilata was one of them and walked away with a remote pilot certificate.
In September 2024, IFFCO provided Shantilata with a drone and an autorickshaw to transport it. With the kharif crop season in progress, she started with 25 acre. The following kharif season, she covered over 150 acre across Balishankara and the adjacent Subdega block. She charges Rs 250 per acre for spraying liquid fertilisers and pesticides.
The expansion of coverage was not an easy task though. She had to constantly raise awareness among farmers on the benefits of using drones to spray fertilisers, which included uniform distribution of inputs, cutting down waste, reducing labour costs, and also enabling assessment of crop health, analysing soil conditions and managing water more efficiently.
Then she faced another problem, that of topography and farming patterns. “In Sundargarh, agricultural plots are usually very small in size and surrounded by large trees making it very difficult for airborne spraying. On top of it, farmers’ lack of awareness on benefits of drone operations and reluctance to readily adopt them are the biggest obstacles,” she reveals.
She has been consistently engaging with them on all these aspects. She is also encouraging farmers to replace water-soluble Nano Urea and Nano DAP fertiliser with traditional urea and DAP fertiliser for cost efficiency, agriculture sustainability and higher crop outputs.
Her work has begun to draw institutional attention. Chief district agriculture officer of Sundargarh LB Mallick recently visited her operations and assured support to expand her reach.