Bengaluru: Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Amber Dubey on Saturday said that the major intent behind liberalising the drone policy in India was to make it a global drone hub. “We have made the policy so liberal that the entire concentration should be more on research and development. There is no sector left where drones cannot be used. The applications are in law and order, defence, agriculture and so on. It will play an important role in war. We have come up with a liberalised policy on drones,” he said at an international virtual conference on the ‘Future of Aerospace & Aviation (FoAA)’, hosted by the Executive Education Programmes Office of IIM Bangalore.
In February, the Ministry of Civil Aviation abolished the requirement of a drone pilot licence.
“In August 2021, we came up with the liberalised drone policy. Then, we released the drone airspace map which freed up almost 85-90 per cent of India as a green zone where you could just go and fly for business or for personal needs. Then the Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) policy was released, followed by the drone type certification policy. We have set up the foundation that was needed,” he added.
In March, last year, the civil aviation ministry had published the UAS Rules, 2021 which the academia and other stakeholders perceived as restrictive since it involved paperwork, permissions for every drone flight and very few ‘free to fly’ green zones.
12/03/22 Aksheev Thakur/Indian Express
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