The agriculture ministry has got approval from aviation regulator DGCA for flying drones to capture images of rice and wheat fields in 100 districts to assess crop yields at gram panchayat level under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said on Thursday. This is the first remote sensing technology based largest pilot study conducted so far in the country for crop yield estimation, the agriculture minister said in a tweet. Apart from drone-based images, high spatial resolution satellite data, biophysical models, smart sampling, artificial intelligence among others are also being used in the large scale pilot study, he added.