The centre and state governments are focusing on adopting drones to reach remote areas to deliver Covid vaccines. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has sought bids from drone operators to supply medicines and vaccines.
On the other hand, Telangana state has initiated a project to examine the feasibility of supplying medicines. Companies having logistics experience including Flipkart and Dunzo have stated their consortia under Telangana’s drone delivery scheme to develop and execute drone deliveries there.
The June 11 tender document, according to ICMR, was floated by Infra Tech Services with the purpose to generate a workable model for vaccine delivery to ensure that shots reach extremely difficult terrains in selected locations. The tinder hovered based on successful conduction of feasibility study with IIT-Kanpur to deliver vaccines using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
ICMR in April was given a provisional exemption by the Ministry of Civil Aviation for its study with IIT-Kanpur on the feasibility of BVLOS operations for vaccine deliveries. From the study experience, the ICMR is attempting to take UAVs capable of performing beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and can cover distances of 35 km at “minimum” altitudes of 100 m.
It should be able to carry at least the smallest payload of 4kg and stick to the DGCA and the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s safety and weight standards. The feasibility study has made it evident that parachute-based deliveries cannot be favoured. Although 20 consortia have been chosen by the Ministry for experimental BVLOS operations, none have been cleared to carry out these operations as yet.
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As per the present laws, conditions say that drones can only operate their UAVs when in line of sight.
The 20 consortia include SpiceJet, Dunzo Air Consortium, Skylark Drones & Swiggy, ClearSky Flight Consortium, Throttle Aerospace Systems and Virginia Tech India.
According to the lines of the conditional exemption given to the ICMR, Telangana has also been spared from BVLOS restrictions by the centre allowing operations to test the feasibility for vaccine deliveries.
Manufacturing executives say that with BVLOS, drone operations can lead to cost-cutting as economies of scale can be brought in. It can be made possible by the ability of the drone pilots to locate in a situation while the UAVs are operated in a different region. These can be helpful particularly in cases of time-sensitive deliveries.
Releasing a statement announcing its partnership in the Telangana government’s ‘Medicines from Sky Project’, Flipkart said: “As part of the consortium, Flipkart will utilise learnings from its tech-enabled supply chain to deploy drones and enable deliveries of vaccines and medical supplies”.
“A combination of these technologies will then be used to conduct BVLOS deliveries in remote areas of the state where the road infrastructure is not conducive for the fast delivery of vaccines. The pilot, which is expected to be conducted for over six days, will be tested out for delivering thousands of vaccines while keeping in mind all the safety and efficiency parameters,” the online shopping firm added.
Formulated by the World Economic Forum and Healthnet Global Limited, The ‘Medicines from Sky’ scheme outlines the need to deliver things with the help of drones and how to estimate proposals.
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This structure has been adopted by Telangana state to implement drones for the last-mile delivery of essentials and is planning to combine them into the state’s healthcare supply chain.