Final Guidelines For Commercial Drone Flights

• 28 Aug 2018

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued the finalised guidelines for commercial use of drones or remotely operated aircraft from December 1.

• A drone task force has been formed under Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha’s chairmanship that will provide draft recommendations for drone regulations for the future.
• However, the regulator clearly disallowed delivery of payload by drones for now. So, they cannot be used by e-commerce companies or online food platforms for delivery of food or goods.

What are Drones?

• The DGCA has defined Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) as an unmanned aircraft piloted from a remote pilot station.
• The remotely piloted aircraft, its associated remote pilot station(s), command and control links and any other components forms a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS).

DGCA Guidelines

• Remotely piloted aircraft have been divided into five categories-
  i) Nano : Less than or equal to 250 grams.
  ii) Micro : From 250 grams to 2kg.
  iii) Small : From 2kg to 25kg.
  iv) Medium : From 25kg to 150kg.
  v) Large : Greater than 150kg.
• All civilian drone operations will be restricted to only during day time.
• There can’t be any human or animal payloads, or anything hazardous.
• It cannot in any manner cause danger to people or property and insurance will be mandatory to cover third-party damage.
• Flying will be restricted within visual line of sight which usually would be 450 metres.
• Except nano drones and those owned by National Technical Research Organisation and the central agencies, the rest would be registered and issued Unique Identification Number.
• The norms prevent drones from flying around certain restricted locations such as airports, near international border, near coast line, state secretariat complexes strategic locations, military installations.
• The registration of the drones, permission to fly will be done digitally through the ‘digital sky platform’, connected to local police.