By Aritra Banerjee
India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has requested several ministries including the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to encourage various entities under their administrative control to promote the 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,” a MoCA press release issued on the development read.
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.
An Illustrative list of drone applications under different Union Ministries was presented by MoCA and has been reproduced by IA&D for readers:
| S No | Ministry | Illustrative drone applications |
| Agriculture & FarmersWelfare | Crop and soil health monitoringIrrigation estimation and schedulingRequirement and efficacy assessment of fertilizer and pesticide sprayingAnti-locust operationsCrop output estimatesRiver and canal erosion; restoration trackingInsurance claim surveys | |
| Health & Family Welfare | Delivery of medicines, equipment and othersuppliesPathology tests – sample collection from remote or epidemic/ pandemic affected areas | |
| Panchayati Raj | Land records and property rights (SVAMITVA Scheme) | |
| Defence | SurveillanceCombat Communication in remote areasSwarm drone solutionsCounter drone solutions | |
| Home Affairs | Surveillance, situational analysis, publicannouncements and evidence gathering for:Security of sensitive installationsRaids and counter-terror operationsCrowd managementCrime controlVVIP securityDisaster management; search and rescue; transportation of food, medicines and essentialsTraffic management | |
| Housing and Urban Affairs | Urban planning and managementConstruction planning and monitoringIncident reportingPrevention of encroachment and land-use alteration | |
| Transportation: Road Transport and Highways; Railways; Ports, Shipping and Waterways | SurveillanceIncident responseInspection and maintenanceProject monitoringDisaster management | |
| Mining | Monitoring and InspectionAutomatic surveying and mappingStockpile assessment and managementHaulage road optimisation | |
| Power | Real-time surveillance of assets and transmission linesTheft prevention and incident responseVisual inspection and maintenanceConstruction plannlng and management | |
| Petroleum and NaturalGas | Real-time surveillance of assets and pipelinesTheft prevention and incident responseVisual inspection and maintenanceConstruction planning and management | |
| Environment, Forestsand Climate Change | Monitoring of forests and wildlifeAfforestation through seed-balls, irrigation and real-time monitoringAnti-poaching actionsPollution assessment and evidence-gathering | |
| Information and Broadcasting | High quality videography of events anddifficult-to-reach-places at a fraction of the cost and approvals requiredLow altitude shooting without noise and-dust pollution and risk of accidentsComplete replacement of costly helicopter- based videography |
The Civil Aviation ministry noted that the list is “illustrative and not exhaustive,” and that “New applications may evolve with time, usage and further innovations.” before concluding that “The above list has been prepared in consultation with academia, drone startups and industry bodies.”
This information was given by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation General (Dr) V. K.Singh (Retd) in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
