The Aviation Ministry has granted permission to conduct experimental drone flight operations beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) to 20 entities, including Swiggy and Dunzo.
The Ministry has granted a conditional exemption from the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules, 2021 for conducting the BVLOS experimental flights. The exemption will be valid for a year or until further orders.
This means that an exclusion has been granted to these 20 companies for experimentation. The list of companies granted permission include Swiggy, Dunzo, and SpiceJet along with 17 others including Skylark Drones, Virginia Tech India, ShopX Omnipresent Consortium, Asteria Aerospace Private Limited, Centillion Networks Private Limited, Marut Dronetech Private Limited and Sagar Defence Engineering Private Limited, the ministry said.
On May 13, 2019 a committee was formed by the ministry of Civil Aviation which invited expressions of interest (EOIs) for BVLOS experimental flights. The Committee received 34 EOI from which, the above mentioned 20 have been selected after rounds of evaluation evaluation. The committee evaluated the 34 EOIs received and selected the aforementioned 20 entities.
The report further states, Zomato , the food aggregator will be stating its trails in Alwar in the state of Rajasthan. Whereas, Dunzo , delivery platform- is also planning to go through trials in the outskirts of Bengaluru.
