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Medicines from the sky: Drones to deliver vaccines, drugs in Telangana
The Medicine From the Sky project is an initiative of Telangana in partnership with the World Economic Forum, NITI Aayog, and HealthNet Global of the Apollo Hospitals.
Civil aviation minister Jyotiradtiya Scindia on Saturday launched “a first of its kind” Medicine From the Sky project aimed at transporting vaccines and other essential products to remote areas using drones. The Medicine From the Sky project will be taken up on a pilot basis in 16 green zones in Telangana and later scaled up on the national level based on data, Scindia said. “This 'Medicines from the Sky' project will be taken up in 16 green zones. The data will be analysed for three months. We along with the health ministry, IT ministry, state government and the Centre will together analyse the data and make a model for the whole country. Today is a revolutionary day not only for Telangana but for the whole country,” the minister said.
Scindia said the new drone policy brought out by the NDA government at the Centre recently eased rules regarding drone operations in the country by reducing the number of forms that need to be filled to operate them from 25 to 5 and the type of thefee charged from the operator from 72 to 4. While no permission is needed to fly drones under the green zone, a nod is needed in the yellow zone but red zones are no-fly areas.
Scindia said the drone policy was envisaged under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The minister added that an interactive aerospace map is being prepared and various zones are being earmarked with the help of states.
The Medicine From the Sky project is an initiative of Telangana in partnership with the World Economic Forum, NITI Aayog, and HealthNet Global of the Apollo Hospitals. The Medicine From the Sky project was launched on experimental Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone flights for the delivery of vaccines using the identified airspace of the Vikarabad district.
From Saturday, BVLOS drone flights will travel a distance of 9-10km and carry consignments of vaccines, medical samples and other healthcare items. According to reports, trials of delivering medicines and vaccines using drones began from Thursday under the Telangana government's ambitious 'Medicine From The Sky' project. The trial flights are to be conducted till October 10 at Vikarabad and a majority of them will be by tech start-up Skye Air Mobility, PTI reported earlier.
(With agency inputs)
