Giving wings to drone Industry

 The draft Drone Rules, 2021 released by the Civil Aviation Ministry will open the Indian sky for drone technology. The new rules will repeal the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules, 2021 that came into force on March 12. Unveiling of a new set of rules within such a short interval of about four months was in response to representations by the Drone Industry for a business-friendly regime to promote the use of drone technology for doorstep cargo deliveries and various drone-based start-ups. The ineffectiveness of a stricter regime under UAS, Rules, 2021 in curbing the use of drones by criminals was established when a terror attack on the Indian Air Force base in Jammu occurred last month. India's decision to liberalize the drone rules was taken days after the incident and is a strong signal that the country will not allow the terror attacks launched from Pakistan to sabotage the emergence of the drone industry as the sunrise sector in India. The new draft rules emphasize developing the Digital sky platform as a business-friendly single-window online system and there will be a minimal human interface on the digital sky platform and most permissions will be self-generated. It says that drone corridors will be developed for cargo deliveries which are expected to reverse the ban on doorstop commercial deliveries using drones. An interactive airspace map with green, yellow, and red zones will be displayed on the digital sky platform and no flight permission will be required up to 400 feet in green zones and up to 200 feet in the area between 8 and 12 km from the airport perimeter. Yellow zone reduced from 45 km to 12 km from the airport perimeter and such relaxation is going make drone operation more flexible. Doing away with the prior security clearance required before any registration or licence issuance has been seen as removing the administrative bottlenecks. The reduction of several forms from 25 under UAS Rules, 2021 to six in the new regime is going to save the drone operators from the troubles of obtaining permission from multiple departments and organizations. The use of a drone for Research and Development (R&D) and educational activities are going to get a boost with the new rules specifying that no pilot licence will be required for micro drones (for non-commercial use), nano drones and R&D organizations. There will also be no restriction on drone operations by foreign-owned companies registered in India and the import of drones and drone components is to be regulated by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade. New Rules say that safety features like 'No permission – no take-off' (NPNT), real-time tracking beacon, geo-fencing are to be notified in future and a six-month lead time will be provided for compliance. Under the liberalised regime, the Drone promotion council is proposed to be set up to facilitate a business-friendly regulatory regime. A Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) report states that the use of unmanned aircraft systems is increasing in India and it is projected that the value of the drone industry and market in India would be around US dollar 885.7 million, while the global market size will touch US dollar 21.47 billion by 2021. The FICCI report titled "Make in India for Unmanned Aircraft Systems" lists the key sectors in which drone technology wide applications. These include- railways, agriculture, power and utility, highways, and mining. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), under the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, has made mandatory use of drones for monthly video recording of National Highway projects during all stages of development, construction, operation, and maintenance. The NHAI making it mandatory for contractors and concessionaires to carry out the drone video recording in presence of the team leader of the supervision consultant and upload comparative project videos of the current and last month on NHAI's portal 'Data Lake', capturing various project-related developments during the month will require deploying drones on the wide and faster scale for the highway projects. The NHAI stated that supervision consultants shall analyse these drone videos and will provide their comments on the digital monthly progress reports covering various aspects of the project development while NHAI officials will use them during the physical inspection of the projects to check the discrepancies and rectifications made basis the earlier observations. Liberalized drone regime is expected to boost the use of drones in highway projects and this notification of the new draft rules is good news for drone entrepreneurs and their start-ups. Transport and communication bottlenecks in North-eastern states make the rugged terrain across the hills and the valleys a perfect region where the application of drone technology on a wide scale can help overcome development challenges and advance research activities in various sectors like agriculture, horticulture, livestock, energy, and other sectors. The new rules will help entrepreneurial dreams in the drone sector become realities in the region.