Namo Drone Didi scheme explained for women’s self-help groups, and what has really happened to it

What the Namo Drone Didi scheme is, in one paragraph

Namo Drone Didi is a central government scheme that puts agricultural drones in the hands of women’s self-help groups. The SHG gets the drone at a heavy discount, one member trains as a licensed drone pilot, and the group then earns money by spraying fertiliser and pesticide on other farmers’ fields for a fee. The Union Cabinet approved it with an outlay of ₹1,261 crore and a target of 15,000 drones, run through the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), and the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare released its operational guidelines in November 2024.

That’s the short version. The longer one matters, because the scheme works very differently from most of what you’ll read online. You can’t apply for it as an individual. There is no national “apply online” form. And the funded period was set to end with the 2025–26 financial year, which has now passed. We’ll get to all of that.

If you are new to SHG-led businesses in general, our explainers on Lakhpati Didi and the self-help group loan are the natural companions to this one.

What an SHG actually gets

The guidelines describe a package, not just a drone. Here is what is covered, as published.

Read that first row carefully. Eighty per cent of an agricultural drone package that costs, say, ₹10 lakh is ₹8 lakh, so the cap bites right around that price. If the package costs more, the SHG pays everything above ₹8 lakh plus its 20% share. Prices vary by model, so ask your implementing agency for the actual quotation before your federation signs anything.

Who is eligible, and why it isn’t you on your own

This is the part most websites get wrong. Namo Drone Didi is built around groups, not individuals. The unit of selection is a women’s SHG promoted under DAY-NRLM, usually through its village organisation or cluster-level federation.

• You must be a member of a women’s self-help group registered under DAY-NRLM in your state’s rural livelihood mission.
• Your SHG has to be selected by the state and district-level committees under the scheme. Selection looks at clusters where drone spraying is economically viable, meaning enough farmland and crops that benefit from it.
• Within the selected SHG, one woman is chosen to become the pilot. She needs to be able to complete the DGCA-approved training, which in practice means basic literacy and the confidence to handle the equipment.
• A second person, a member or family member, trains as the assistant.

Pages that list exact age limits and minimum education levels for “drone didi eligibility” are mostly guessing; we couldn’t find those conditions in the published guidelines and different sites quote different numbers. If you see a strict cut-off, ask your block mission office whether it’s real before you rule yourself in or out.

If you aren’t in an SHG yet, that’s the first step, and it’s worth doing for its own sake. Membership opens the door to bank linkage loans, Lakhpati Didi training and a long list of government schemes for women entrepreneurs.

How selection and applying work in practice

There is no public portal where a woman uploads her Aadhaar and waits for a drone. Any site that asks you to pay a “registration fee” for Namo Drone Didi is a scam. Close it.

What happens instead, according to the guidelines, is a top-down selection that you can influence from the bottom up:

1. Clusters are identified

State-level committees, working with the Lead Fertiliser Companies, identify areas where drone services make commercial sense. Think large areas under crops that need regular spraying, such as paddy, wheat, cotton, sugarcane and many vegetables.

2. SHGs are shortlisted

Within those clusters, district-level committees shortlist progressive SHGs, often from cluster-level federations that already run some enterprise and have a working bank account and repayment history.

3. Pilots are chosen and trained

The selected SHG nominates a member for pilot training at a DGCA-approved Remote Pilot Training Organisation. On completing the course she receives a Remote Pilot Certificate, which is what legally allows her to fly a drone of that category for commercial work.

4. The drone is delivered

The drone package is procured and handed over through the implementing company, along with the assistant’s training. The SHG’s 20% share is arranged through its federation, often with a loan.

What you can do right now

• Speak to your SHG’s community resource person or your block mission manager and ask whether your cluster has been considered for Namo Drone Didi or any drone programme.
• Ask the nearest Krishi Vigyan Kendra or agriculture office whether a fertiliser company is running drone demonstrations in your district.
• Strengthen your SHG’s paperwork: regular meetings, savings records and a clean loan repayment history make a group easier to shortlist for anything.

The honest status in late 2026

Here’s what we’d want a friend to know before she spends months chasing this. The scheme was approved for a fixed window: the Cabinet note and later parliamentary answers describe it as running to 2025–26 (some government documents date the start to 2023–24, others to 2024–25). The 2025–26 financial year ended on 31 March 2026.

Progress against the 15,000-drone target has been slow. A Ministry of Rural Development note from March 2026 said that 500 drones had been distributed under the scheme itself, by Lead Fertiliser Companies, to drone didis in 2023–24. Separately, a parliamentary reply that year put the number of drones handed to women’s SHGs through fertiliser companies overall at 1,094, of which those 500 were the Namo Drone Didi share.

As of October 2026 we have not found an announcement extending the scheme beyond 2025–26 or allocating funds for 2026–27. That could change, and schemes are often continued or folded into a successor. So treat the scheme as “check before you plan around it” rather than “apply now.” Your state rural livelihood mission is the only office that can tell you whether any drones remain to be allotted in your district.

We’ll update this page when there is a firm decision either way.

Other ways a woman can get a subsidised farm drone

Drone Didi is the best-known route, not the only one. If your SHG isn’t selected, or the scheme stays shut, look at these.

Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanisation (SMAM)

The agriculture ministry’s mechanisation scheme added drones in 2022. Under those guidelines, individual farmers who are women, small and marginal farmers, SC/ST farmers or from the North East could get 50% of the drone cost up to ₹5 lakh, other farmers 40% up to ₹4 lakh, and Farmer Producer Organisations a higher share. Custom Hiring Centres run by cooperatives, FPOs or rural entrepreneurs could also claim support, with agriculture graduates setting up such a centre eligible for a larger share. Rates are revised from time to time, so confirm the current figures with your district agriculture officer.

A loan for the business

A drone service business is a real enterprise, so normal MSME credit applies. Many women start with a Mudra loan for working capital or look at PMEGP for a project-linked subsidy. Register the enterprise on Udyam first, because almost every lender and scheme asks for it.

Start as a pilot, not an owner

Getting your Remote Pilot Certificate from a DGCA-approved school and flying for an existing operator, an FPO or an agri-input company is a lower-risk way in. You learn the work, the pricing and the seasons before you take on a loan for a machine of your own.

Can a drone actually make money for an SHG?

It can. It can also sit in a storeroom. The difference is rarely the drone.

A drone sprays an acre in minutes, uses far less water than a knapsack sprayer and keeps the operator away from the chemical. Farmers like that. But the work is seasonal, and it is heavily tied to the local crop calendar. In the weeks when crops need spraying, a good pilot can be booked every day; in the off-season, almost nothing.

• Know your season. Map the spraying windows for the two or three main crops within 15 km and plan the year around them.
• Price per acre, and write it down. Ask other operators and the implementing company what farmers in your area pay, then add the cost of the battery charging, travel and the assistant’s time.
• Batteries are the hidden cost. They wear out. Budget for replacements from the first season’s income rather than hoping they last.
• Get farmers in groups. Booking ten neighbouring fields on one morning beats driving to one field at a time. Your SHG and village organisation are the obvious booking network.
• Keep a simple log of each job: date, farmer, acreage, product sprayed and amount paid. It protects you in a dispute and it is what a bank asks to see later.
• Never spray anything you can’t identify. Ask for the product label every time and follow the dose on it.

Several women have built visible businesses on the back of this, and the media has rightly told their stories. What those stories share is a pilot who treated it as a business, with a booking list and a price, rather than a gift to be used when someone asks.

A quick checklist before you start

• Are you a member of a DAY-NRLM women’s SHG? If not, join one first.
• Have you asked your block mission office whether drones remain under Namo Drone Didi for your district?
• If not, have you asked the agriculture office about SMAM drone support or a Custom Hiring Centre?
• Is there enough farmland and spraying demand within a short drive to keep a drone busy in season?
• Has your federation worked out how it will fund the share the subsidy doesn’t cover?
• Who in your group will train as the pilot, and who as the assistant?
• Is your enterprise registered on Udyam, with a bank account in the group’s or federation’s name?

If most of those are yes, you are in a far stronger position than the average applicant, whatever happens to this particular scheme.