The Telangana government does not have any plans to use drones to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to remote locations in the near future.
As was reported in these columns, in April the State had received conditional exemption from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) with regard to Unmanned Aircraft System Rules, 2021, so as to conduct experimental delivery of vaccines using drones with Visual Line of Sight, known as VLoS.
After this, earlier this month, Beyond Visual Line of Sight flight, known as BVLoS, permission too was accorded with an aim to enhance the scope of using drones in the country.
Speaking to The Hindu on Wednesday, Information Technology, Electronics and Communications Principal Secretary Jayesh Ranjan said that the State’s drone programme was conceived in 2018, keeping delivery of vaccines such as polio in focus. T
his was a time much before the fist case of the COVID-19 was reported in the country, and the information about the virus was not common knowledge.
“The project was not for the COVID-19 vaccine and no one even knew about it back then. It was primarily for vaccines for children such as polio.
The COVID-19 vaccine has completely different protocols which have to be followed.
At least this year we have no plans of starting trials to deliver COVID-19 vaccines. We need to have more clarity on this and then we will take a call in the future,” Mr Ranjan said.
The State-supported T Works, which helps innovators in prototyping products, has also been working on drones.
