The new rules on drones make it mandatory that these devices are registered and agencies will be able identify those which are rogue through tracking mechanisms, senior government officials said on Thursday. The Drone Rules, 2021, were issued on Wednesday and they supersede the Unmanned Aircraft System Rules, 2021, which had come into force on March 12.
In the absence of a drone policy, these devices were not registered and also there were no demarcations on where they should be flown, Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan said.
“The new norms prescribe registration of all drones and there will be a specific tracking mechanism. Those whose drones are not registered will be identified right away,” he said during a press conference.
Responding to a question on misuse of drones and security risk, Civil Aviation Secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola said, “We have the facility to identify a rogue drone and this is what these rules provide for.”
He explained that every car has a registration number and there is a mechanism to know who owns it.
“Something similar will happen with drones. The rules have a provision that in the future, each drone will have an identification. The first challenge is to identify a good drone and a bad drone,” Kharola said.
“Once a bad drone is identified there are protocols in place. It is not only the civil aviation ministry, but other ministries and agencies are working together to ensure that once such an identification is done how to deal with that,” he said.
In a separate press conference, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said the defence ministry, the home ministry and the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security have been working together so that “counter rogue drone technology” can be developed and adopted quickly.
The civil aviation ministry has eased rules regarding drone operations in the country by reducing the number of forms that need to be filled to operate them from 25 to 5 and decreasing the types of fee charged from the operator from 72 to 4.
Kharola said the Drone Rule 2021 has classified areas in zones where drones can fly — red, which means restricted areas and airport premises, yellow zone, which is for 5 to 8 kms from red zone and green zone, which requires no permission for operation.
He said the first version of the drone rules came in 2017 and it was the first attempt to regulate their use. “It was found that it was not very comprehensive, so a second attempt was made in the beginning of this year. But the approach was regulatory,” Kharola said.
“But then with larger consultations with stakeholders, it was found that an enabling environment has to be provided for drones to be developed and manufactured,” he said, adding that this paved the way for new rules.
The new guidelines are based on three key important principles — trust, self-certification and non-intrusive monitoring, he said. Raghavan said the new rules will help stimulate avenues like medicine delivery and even vaccines in far flung areas.
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