Bharat Drone Mahotsav

Why in the News?

Recently, the PM inaugurated India’s biggest Bharat Drone Mahotsav at Pragati Maidan in Delhi.

About Drone:

• Drones are commonly referred to as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) whereas the entire system that allows a drone to function is a UAS (Unmanned Aerial System)

• It was originally developed for the military and aerospace industries, drones have found their way into the mainstream because of the enhanced levels of safety and efficiency they bring

Threat posed by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV):

• It can be used for smuggling, reconnaissance, or to carry out various types of attack, targeting VIPs, crowded areas or other aircraft

• The Ministry of Civil Aviation in 2019 put together guidelines for countering rogue drones

  • The rogue drones guidelines suggest a three-tier approach to guarding against drones

  • It envisages a protective cover that includes primary and passive detection systems like radar, radio frequency detectors, electro-optical and infrared cameras

  • For the task of neutralising drones these sites can have both ‘soft kill’ systems, like radio frequency jammers, and ‘hard kill’ mechanisms like high-powered electromagnetic and LASER weapons, drone-catching nets, etc

Application of Drone: Recently, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has urged other ministries to make better use of drones in their respective domains

• Ministry of Home Affairs: VVIP security, Surveillance, situational analysis, crime control, and counter-terror operations

• Ministry of Defence: Combat operations, communication in remote areas, counter-drone solutions, reconnaissance and surveillance

• Ministry of Health and Family Welfare: Delivery of medicines, collection of samples from remote or epidemic/pandemic-affected areas, delivery of blood and organ transplantation

• Ministry of  Environment, Forests and Climate Change: Anti-poaching actions, monitoring of forests and wildlife, pollution assessment, and evidence gathering

• Ministry of Information and Broadcasting: The Ministry could use drones for high-quality videography of events and difficult-to-reach-places at a fraction of the cost and approvals required

  • This move would also facilitate low altitude shooting without noise, and prevent dust pollution and risk of accidents

• Ministry of Agriculture: Crop and soil health monitoring, anti-locust work, insurance claim survey, spraying fertilisers and pesticides targeted

• Ministry of Panchayati Raj: Land Records and property rights

• Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Ministry of Power: Real-time surveillance of assets and transmission lines, theft prevention, visual inspection/maintenance, construction planning and management

• Ministry of Railways: unmanned aerial vehicles could be used to undertake disaster management, incidence response, inspection/maintenance works and project monitoring

Significance of Drone Mahotsav:

• Drone technology promotion is another means of strengthening our commitment to good governance and ease of life

• The sector shows great possibilities of a major sector for employment generation

• Drone technology is going to play a major role in empowering farmers and modernising their lives

Key features of Drone Rules 2021:

• In August last year, the government notified the Drone Rules 2021 with an aim to liberalise the stringent regime for civilian drone operations that it had established in 2018

• Ease of Doing Business: The total number of forms that were to be filled has been reduced from 25 to 5
  
  The total number of fees that are to be paid before being able to operate drones has been reduced from 72 to just 4

• Several Approvals Abolished: unique authorisation number, unique prototype identification number, certificate of manufacturing and airworthiness, certificate of conformance, certificate of maintenance, import clearance, acceptance of existing drones, operator permits, authorisation of R&D organisation, student remote pilot licence, remote pilot instructor authorisation, drone port authorisation etc

• Digital Sky Platform: It shall be developed as a user-friendly single-window system.  There will be minimal human interface and most permissions will be self-generated

• Digital Sky Platform is an initiative by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) to provide a secure and scalable platform that supports drone technology frameworks, such as NPNT (no permission, no take-off), designed to enable flight permission digitally and manage unmanned aircraft operations and traffic efficiently

• Interactive Airspace Map: Interactive airspace maps with green, yellow and red zones shall be displayed on the digital sky platform within 30 days of publication of these rules

• The yellow zone, which was earlier a 45 km zone from the airport perimeter, has now been reduced to a 12 km zone, meaning that outside of a 12 km radius of an airport perimeter, it would be a green zone, where drone operators no longer need permission to fly