Drones used for civilian, defence purposes to be regulated separately: Aviation Secretary

Drone Regulation: The government regulations for drones with civilian, industrial, and public use will be different as compared to the drones that are used for law & order and defence use, said Vumlunmang Vualnam, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation. 

The official said both civilian and defence related drones will be promoted and supported in best possible way. Vualnam was speaking at the CII National Conference on Drones on Tuesday in New Delhi. “On the rules, progress has been made. The entire of geography of our country has been mapped – only 10 per cent in in red zone and 90 per cent is in Green Zone” the Secretary said. In the emerging drone-operating parlance, Red Zones are areas where drone operations are strictly prohibited without permission from the Central Government, while Green Zones are free zones where drones weighing up to 500 kg can operate without seeking permission with certain specifications.

Pointing out that ‘Maps are now in an online platform’ the secretary added “Identification rules have been liberalized. Documentation for remote pilot license, etc, are being simplified. We will see how we can move further processes into an online platform – to facilitate ease of activity, ease of doing business”. The ministry is also exploring ways to collaborate with other government arms to incentivise production of drones as well as drone components.

“We will interact with DPIIT, Ministry of Finance to see how the drone manufacturers and component manufacturers are equally incentivized” the secretary said, emphasizing that we are heavily import-dependent as far as parts of drones are concerned. “The government is supporting indigenous development of critical items, R&D, cameras, sensors installed in drones and will sustain the development of the sector” the Secretary added.

Image Credit: Unsplash 

The government is looking at leveraging drone for multiple applications. From ground survey mapping for people to get land-title, to use of NaMo drones in agriculture sector, the government is exploring a range of applications for drones. Under this scheme, 1000 drones were acquired few months back by the government, and there is a plan is to acquire NaMo 15000 drones in the upcoming phase.

“The technology already has many use-cases, and once in the hands of masses, it will have many more innovative utilities. After all, this is a land where a washing-machines are used for making lassi” said Mr Amit Dutta, Chairman, CII Task Force on Short Haul Mobility & Managing Director, Hunch Mobility.

“Drones gives the opportunity to democratize technology by having large number of entrepreneurs at different levels----for OEMs, service level, agricultural drones and defence drones. The challenge right now is around how to notch the drones towards logistics space” said Prof Satya Chakraborty, Founder of ePlane and Chairman of the CII National Conference on Drones.

Industry leaders hoped to continue getting support from the new government. While strong collaboration between government, industry, academia, exist in this sector, specific components like, “payload sensors, electronic components,” need to be developed locally on a PPP mode, they said.