Drone 'Didis' Impact Farming; Over 1M Panjab Farmers Off Govt Scheme

Replying to a query by member Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) Parshottambhai Rupala, the Indian Union minister of state for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Ramnath Thakur stated that of the 14,500 drones approved under the union government scheme, a total of 1,021 have been allocated to Panjab. The union govt also trained young women as Drone Didi (sister). These women now educate farmers on how to spray insecticides, pesticides, and nutrients on their crops. 21-year-old entrepreneur from Chathewala village in Bathinda, Amanjot Kaur, said that she earned USD 1.9K in the last seven months by working as a drone pilot. Kulwinder Kaur from Messigan village in Patiala says, ‘In 2024, I sprayed farm chemicals on 448 acres, while this year I have already covered 265 acres of maize, sunflower, and fodder.' Meanwhile, with figures dropping by nearly 49% over the past five years, Panjab has recorded the steepest fall in the number of beneficiaries under the Indian PM-Kisan (farmers) scheme. Under this scheme the govt pays farmers USD 68 every year as a benefit. Beneficiaries fell from 2.3M between December 2019 and March 2020, the highest-ever recorded in the state when farmers received USD 53M, to just 1.13 M between April and July 2025, who received USD 44M. In Panjab many of the beneficiaries have been cancelled over incomplete paper work which has not gone down well with farmer unions. Concurrently, the union govt’s Digital Agriculture Mission across India has generated over 70M unique farmer IDs linked to land records. 14 states have provided such IDs. 'Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Panjab may soon join the initiative to provide digital IDs to farmers,' said an official. These IDs capture farmer demographic profiles, landholdings, and cropping patterns, enabling states to design targeted schemes. The reason farmers from north Indian states are resisting the move is because they do not want their land records entered in the AgriStack which will then be used to manipulate them.