PANAJI: Ministry of Civil Aviation has requested several Ministries including Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to encourage various entities under their administrative control to promote use of drones.
Drones offer tremendous benefits to almost all sectors of the economy like -agriculture, medicine delivery, mining, infrastructure, surveillance, emergency response, transportation, geo-spatial mapping, defence and law enforcement etc.
As per Drone Rules, 2021, operation of drones in zones marked red and yellow on the drone airspace map zones requires permission from the Central Government and the Air Traffic Control (ATC) authority respectively. No permission is required to operate a drone in a green zone which is where most of the drone operations currently happen.
In the Annexure -I listed in the press note by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the benefits of drone applications are highlighted with respect to different Union Ministries, as follows.
Agriculture & Farmers Welfare
Crop and soil health monitoring
Irrigation estimation and scheduling
Requirement and efficacy assessment of fertilizer and pesticide spraying
Anti-locust operations
Crop output estimates
River and canal erosion; restoration tracking
Insurance claim surveys
Health & Family Welfare
Delivery of medicines, equipment and other
supplies
Pathology tests – sample collection from remote or epidemic/ pandemic affected areas
Panchayati Raj
Land records and property rights (SVAMITVA Scheme)
Defence
Surveillance
Combat
Communication in remote areas
Swarm drone solutions
Counter drone solutions
Home Affairs
Surveillance, situational analysis, public
announcements and evidence gathering for:
Security of sensitive installations
Raids and counter-terror operations
Crowd management
Crime control
VVIP security
Disaster management; search and rescue; transportation of food, medicines and essentials
Traffic management
Housing and Urban Affairs
Urban planning and management
Construction planning and monitoring
Incident reporting
Prevention of encroachment and land-use alteration
Transportation: Road Transport and Highways; Railways; Ports, Shipping and Waterways
Surveillance
Incident response
Inspection and maintenance
Project monitoring
Disaster management
Mining
Monitoring and Inspection
Automatic surveying and mapping
Stockpile assessment and management
Haulage road optimisation
Power
Real-time surveillance of assets and transmission lines
Theft prevention and incident response
Visual inspection and maintenance
Construction plannlng and management
Petroleum and Natural
Gas
Real-time surveillance of assets and pipelines
Theft prevention and incident response
Visual inspection and maintenance
Construction planning and management
Environment, Forests
and Climate Change
Monitoring of forests and wildlife
Afforestation through seed-balls, irrigation and real-time monitoring
Anti-poaching actions
Pollution assessment and evidence-gathering
Information and Broadcasting
High quality videography of events and
difficult-to-reach-places at a fraction of the cost and approvals required
Low altitude shooting without noise and-dust pollution and risk of accidents
Complete replacement of costly helicopter- based videography.
