Explained: The Evolution Of India's Drone Sector

Drones or Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are aircraft with no onboard crew. The ¡®drones¡¯ can range from remotely piloted to fully automated, which means that it relies on a system of sensors and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) detectors to calculate their movement. It can fly at a controlled level of height and speed for a long period of time.

UAVs have a role in many aspects of aviation ranging from monitoring climate change to carrying out post-disaster search operations, filming, and communication in remote areas but an eminent use by the military is the most well-known operation of a drone. UAVs first were massively deployed in the Vietnam War and began to be used in a range of new roles, such as acting as decoys in combat, launching missiles, and dropping leaflets. As World moves into a new drone regime, here's a brief look back at the history of drones in India.

India's history of drones

Back in the 1990s, the Indian Army acquired unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs from Israel, and the Indian Air Force and Navy followed suit. India first used military drones during the 1999 Kargil war against Pakistan for photo-reconnaissance along the Line of Control (LOC).

Unsplash/Representational image

After India lost an aircraft to a Pakistani infrared homing missile because of a highly inefficient and strategically weak drone system, Israel discreetly supplied the Indian Air Force with Searcher drones enabling them to acquire target information along the Line of Control. Since then, the state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and several other private Indian companies started creating drones and developing UAV technologies.

In India, the use of all (manned or automated) aerial vehicles is governed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Though UAVs were originally developed for the military and aerospace industries, drones have found their way into the mainstream because of the enhanced levels of safety and efficiency they bring.

Evolution of the use of drones

Recently, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has approved a pilot project with the Telangana government to assess alternative logistics routes in providing safe, accurate, and reliable pickup/delivery of health care items in remote areas through drones.

The project would start with delivering vaccines/medicine to the desired community health centers and PHCs. Similar permission was granted to deploy drones for agricultural research activities and is expected to drive a wave of technology in the Agri & farming sector. Kisan Drones are being used for crop assessments, land records, and spraying of insecticides and nutrients.

Unsplash/Representational image

Drones are also significantly being used by law enforcement agencies and for real-time monitoring of COVID-19 hotspots and containment zones to ensure strict compliance with lockdown guidelines. From SVAMITVA (Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas) scheme of mapping out the Abadi areas to get residents' property cards to drone-based surveillance system for Railway Security, the rapidly expanding use of drones has prompted the DGCA to formulate new rules and regulations to govern the civilian use of drones in India.

Building a digital sky platform

The Drone Rules 2021 (¡°Drone Rules¡±) is a supersession of the earlier existing Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules, notified in March, 2021. The Drone Rules were issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on August 26, 2021, and do not apply to drones used by the naval, military, or air forces of India.

The central government believed the new rules to be a much more liberalized regime for unmanned aircraft systems than what existed previously. The rules are said to be built on the premise of trust, self-certification, and non-intrusive monitoring.

To put it plainly, it is expected to ease drone ownership and operation for civilian drone operators in India.

The most significant change under the rule is that the most popular devices in this segment (due to their affordability and practicality) are likely to be classified as micro and nano drones for which users will no longer need a remote pilot's license. Another notable aspect is that the coverage of drones under Drone Rules has been increased from 300kg to 500kg and will cover drone taxis. The rules also reduced the fees for permissions to operate drones.

Unsplash/Representational image

¡°The new Drone Rules will tremendously help start-ups and our youth working in this sector. It will open up new possibilities for innovation & business. It will help leverage India¡¯s strengths in innovation, technology & engineering to make India a drone hub,¡± Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet.

In September 2021, the Union Cabinet also cleared the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme that shall provide incentives up to 20% to the manufacturers of drones and drone components over the value addition that they make.

The union government has taken a serious paradigm shift to the drone industry by announcing 'Drone Shakti' in Budget 2022. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasized that the initiative will also help establish Drones-As-A-Service. With ¡®drone as a service¡¯ the government says start-ups will be promoted to facilitate 'Drone Shakti' through various use cases and applications.

For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News.