Telangana’s Vikarabad region would have drone delivery of the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 vaccination.
Vaccine delivery using drones within Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) would be held as an experimental basis.
On the 30th of April, the Telangana Government got approval regarding the experiment under the plan for Medicine from the Sky. The approval was given by the Union Civil Aviation Ministry (MoCA) to use VLOS flights in Vikarabad district with the Area Hospital as the take off site and various PHCs and sub-centres as the landing sites.
The MoCA took to Twitter and said, “MoCA gives conditional exemption from Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules, 2021 to Govt of Telangana for conducting experimental delivery of vaccines using drones within Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) range.”
The issued approval is valid for a period of one year or until further orders.
In regard to this, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Government asked the district administration to plan the on ground operations under the supervision of nodal officers. As per plan, each drone would carry a combination of dummy vials and regular vaccines over the course of the trials and the performance would be recorded in detail. The data would then be used for further expansion of the trail and if successful, will be used for vaccine deliveries across the district.
The program would be taken up for 24 days, where the eight selected consortia would be divided into four batches of two consortia. Each batch would perform the sorties for six days.
Medicine from Sky initiative with drone service is to provide safe, accurate and reliable pickup and delivery of Health care items. Out of the 16 consortia members that had responded, eight have been shortlisted.
To fast track the process considering the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination drive, NITI Aayog became a key partner in the journey and inspected the arrangements on the 11th of February 2021.
This session was chaired by the NITI Aayog members Dr. V.K. Paul and Dr. V.K. Saraswat with representatives from India’s Ministries of Defence, Civil Aviation, Health and Family Welfare, Home Affairs, State Health Secretaries, Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and other officials.
Stay tuned for further updates.
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