Challenges And Opportunities Provided By The ‘drone Policy 2.0’ Of The Govt Of India.
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Place/Venue
India International Centre
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DATE
4 Oct, 2019
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Duration
3 pm to 5:30 pm
About Events
The PPF organized a discussion in collaboration with the DRONE DESK on the topic of challenges and opportunities provided by the ‘Drone Policy 2.0’ of the Govt of India on 4 October 2019 India International Centre Main, New Delhi (IIC).
Concept note
India’s policy on ‘Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems’ (RPAS),commonly known as ‘Drones’, has travelled a long way from a ‘total ban’ in 2014 to August ,2018 when ‘Drone Policy 1.0’ was announced. The new policy became effective from December 1,2018, opened the opportunities for commercial use of Drones in a welcome recognition of its growing importance in this technology era. The policy permitted flying drones within “Visual Line of sight” (VLOS) subject to certain regulatory limits, it opened its use for personal, recreational and commercial activities. The draft Drone Policy 2.0 released in January 2019 is more ambitious focusing as it does on flying of drones that operate ‘Beyond Visual Line of Sight’ (BVOS).
While the trajectory evolution the drone policy is admirable and opened a potentially huge commercial and business opportunities, there remains certain areas of concern relating to security and privacy issues. Use of Drones by Government agencies dealing with security and defence matters have been kept out the regulatory mechanism. But the Universe of drones will be vastly different from that of the aviation proper and has the potential of grave misuse.
The regulatory architecture seems focussed on laying down norms that must be observed by the holder of the Unmanned Air Operators Permit (UAOP) and others involved. There have been several incidents elsewhere in the world using drones to inflict aggressive attacks on sensitive targets.
There is a need, therefore, evolving norms that nurture economic and commercial potential of using drones while balancing adroitly the security and privacy concerns. This will require framing an interlinking protocol between stakeholders to address these systemic concerns.
