Drones are About to Get More Popular in Indian Skies

1145

Drones took this year’s IPL by storm as TV viewers watched the whole show with utter amazement. After a chase and run of three years, Quiddich Innovation Labs could finally grab the permission of India’s government to use drones to film IPL league this year. The never before seen shots of IPL made drones the ruling king of the show. Drones have finally arrived in India.

In August this year, India’s aviation minister announced that drones in India can now be used for commercial purposes, albeit within line of sight. Aviation minister Jayant Sinha introduced India’s drone policy to kick start a culture which is fast becoming the most sought after recreational medium globally. There are multiple commercial uses of drones and organizations are waiting with baited breath for legality of commercial drone use.

Commercial drones within line of sight can be used in India starting December this year. The government does not yet want the drone to become an ‘unidentified flying object’, hence it has to be flown within user’s visibility. The government is working to expand this policy and will see more outreach and innovations in coming days.

The policy outlines some strict rules that organizations must abide by if they want to use drones for business. Drones can be flown up to the height of 400 feet from ground and within visible line of sight. This means companies like Amazon and Flipkart which had plans to use drones for delivery of goods have to wait before government includes that in the policy.

Drones have also been segmented under different categories based on weight. Except for nano drones, all others, including small, medium, and large need to be registered with aviation ministry. Users of these drones also need remote pilot license to fly their drones. Remote pilot licensing will be given to drone users flying drones weighing anything between 250 grams to 2kg. Any individual of the age 18 and above and having educational qualification of 10+ and with English knowledge can apple for remote pilot license.

Nano drones that used for recreational purposes does not need to be registered.

While the new drone policy by the aviation ministry looks exciting and promising there still needs to be a plethora of areas to be figured out and needs to have a policy to exploit the vast market of drone use.

Unmanned aviation, which is a significant part of drone flying has not yet been tackled in this policy. India is already seeing a chain of startups who are coming up with innovative drone systems and have already received a total funding of $24 million dollars in 2017. Use of unmanned drone systems has a huge potential in sectors of agriculture, mining and energy.

Presently India’s aviation ministry is working with the Home ministry to chart new policies for drone usage by police stations at the district headquarters.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here