E-commerce firm Flipkart will lead a consortium tasked with development and execution of drone deliveries to remote areas under the ‘Medicines from the Sky’ project in Telangana.
Learnings from its tech-enabled supply chain will be utilised to deploy drones and enable deliveries of vaccine and medical supplies. These efforts will be complemented with technologies such as geo mapping, routing of shipments and track and trace of location, developed by the company over the years, Flipkart said on Friday.
A combination of these technologies will be used to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) deliveries in remote areas of the State where road infrastructure is not conducive for fast delivery of vaccines. The pilot project, 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, a release from the firm said. Senior Vice-President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Rajneesh Kumar said “We are proud to partner Telangana government in leading the consortium by utilising our nuanced understanding of supply chain and technologies governing automated movement of shipments. This pilot [project] will set the premise for the utilisation of drone systems in providing healthcare and product delivery in remote areas and even during disasters.”
Telangana Industries and IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan the programme will “go a long way in testing best-in-class technology solutions to tide over future crises”.
The ‘Medicines from the Sky’ is a project conceived by the World Economic Forum and Healthnet Global that outlines requirements for drone delivery and how to assess proposals. The Telangana government has adopted this framework to implement drones for last mile delivery and will integrate them into the state’s healthcare supply chain, the release said.
