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.