In news
The Union civil aviation ministry released the draft of the national drone policy, making it significantly easier for people and companies to own and operate drones.
Key highlights
- The draft Drone Rules, 2021, will replace the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules, 2021, which were issued on March 12, 2021.
- The draft Drone Rules, 2021, will offer safety features such as geo-fencing, real-time tracking beacon. A six-month lead time will be given for compliance.
- The draft Drone Rules, 2021, will provide an interactive airspace map with yellow, green, and red zones that will be displayed on the Digital Sky platform. The yellow zone has been reduced from 45 km to 12 km from the nearby airport perimeter. In the green zone, no flight permission will be required up to 400 ft and up to 200 ft in the area between 8 and 12 km from the airport perimeter.
Significance
- According to the draft Drone Rules 2021, operating drones without unique identification number will not be allowed, unless exempted.
- Drone operators will have to generate a unique identification number of a drone by providing requisite details on the digital sky platform.
- The draft Drone Rules 2021 also have safety features such real-time tracking beacon, and Geo-fencing, which are expected to be notified in future and a six-month lead time will be provided for compliance.
Digital sky platform
- Digital sky platform will also be developed as a business-friendly single-window online system with minimal human interference and most permissions will be self-generated.
- Digital Sky platform is an initiative by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) that offers a secure and scalable platform to support drone technology frameworks such as NPNT (No Permission, No Take-off), provide flight permission digitally, and manage unmanned aircraft operations and traffic in an efficient manner.
Source: PIB
