Hyderabad: DGCA okays use of drones by PJTSAU

Rajendranagar: The Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has approved the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU). Vice-Chancellor Dr Praveen Rao said on Monday that the approval was granted for evaluation and standardisation of plant protection solutions and developing protocols for diagnosis of major pests and diseases using drones in PJTSAU research farms located in the State.

He said PJTSAU was the first State agricultural university to bag the approval of SOPs for the use of drones in agricultural research. The conditional approval is valid for one year. The scope of approval of SOP for research is crop diagnosis, pests and diseases survey and agri-drone spraying using UAV / drone technology.

Dr Rao said the university was at the forefront of generating cutting-edge technologies to address contemporary challenges of the agriculture sector. In tune with the State government's new agriculture policy, PJTSAU is strengthening its research capabilities by initiating innovative practices on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning, including standardization of drone technology, particularly SOPs. The main objective was to bring emerging technologies to the farmers' doorstep.

Accordingly, the university has taken up studies covering five major crops of Telangana viz., rice, cotton, red gram, soybean and groundnut occupying 95 per cent of the cropped area. It will help the government in formulating a policy for use of emerging technologies in agriculture.