Courtesy-IndiaToday
Drone routes are being taken by the Centre and state governments while focusing to deliver vaccines in difficult to reach areas. To check the delivery feasibility of medical supplies, the Telangana government has launched a project while on the other hand, to supply medicines and vaccines bids from drone operators are sought by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). It has been announced the consortia under Telangana’s drone delivery scheme to develop and execute drone deliveries there by companies with logistics experience including Flipkart and Dunzo.
To ensure last-mile coverage of difficult terrains in selected locations, the aim is to craft a feasible model for vaccine delivery, as per the ICMR’s tender document on 11th June, floated by HLL Infra Tech Services on its behalf. To deliver vaccines using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), it was floated with the help of the preliminary results of a successfully conducted feasibility study with IIT-Kanpur.
A conditional exemption to ICMR for its study with IIT-Kanpur on the feasibility of beyond visual line of sight BVLOS operations for vaccine deliveries was granted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation in April. ICMR seeks capable UAVs operating beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and can cover distances of 35 km at minimum altitudes of 100 m, based on the experience from the above-mentioned study. Although the Ministry for experimental BVLOS operations has picked up 20 consortia, none of them has been cleared to carry out these operations as yet.
Virginia Tech India, Throttle Aerospace Systems, Skylark Drones and Swiggy, ClearSky Flight Consortium, Dunzo Air Consortium and Spicejet are included in these.