State and Centre governments are exploring distinctive techniques to accelerate the vaccination procedure specially in remote regions exactly where healthcare infrastructure is weak and delivering vaccines is challenging. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has invited bids from interested drone operators adept for the service to provide vaccines and medicines mentioned an IE report. The Telangana government also not too long ago launched a project to study the delivery feasibility of sending healthcare supplies via drones. Flipkart and Dunzo with logistics practical experience are now working with Telangana’s drone delivery schedule to execute drone deliveries there.
HLL Infra Tech Services has expressed interest in creating a feasible model for last-minute vaccine delivery at challenging terrains, mentioned ICMR’s June 11 tender document. The tender was floated citing preliminary final results of a feasibility study carried out by IIT-Kanpur to provide vaccines making use of unmanned aerial cars.
After the Ministry of Civil Aviation granted a conditional exemption to ICMR to study the feasibility of making use of drones for vaccine delivery and not the body is looking for providers tender capable of operating UAVs beyond visual line of sight and cover distance of at least one hundred m altitude and distance upto 35 kms.
The UAVs have to be capable of carrying a minimum 4 kg payload and adhere to civil Aviation and DGCA’s security requirements. Current guidelines stipulate that drone operators can operate UAVs only inside line of sight. While parachute-based deliveries have been not preferred. About 20 consortia of vaccines have currently been picked by the Ministry for experimental BVLOS operations, without the need of having clearance to carry out these operations as however. SpiceJet, Skylark Drone & Swiggy, Dunzo Air Consortium, Throttle Aerospace Systems, ClearSky Flight Consortium, Virginia Tech India are some of the drones.
The aviation ministry has also exempted the BVLOS restrictions to the Telangana state government to test the feasibility of drone operations for Covid vaccine delivery. According to market specialists, participation of drones will scale up the procedure and valuable from an financial viewpoint as nicely as drone pilots can operate UAVs in distinctive regions by becoming in any area. This is more beneficial for time-sensitive deliveries.
Flipkart in this regard mentioned that it will utilise learnings from the tech-enabled provide chain to provide the supplies. The pilot project will be carried out for six days through which testing for delivery of thousands of vaccine vails will be carried out maintaining security requirements in thoughts.
The World Economic Forum and Healthnet Global Limited have conceived the “Medicines from Sky” project that was adopted by the Telangana government to do last-minute vaccine delivery to regions exactly where road connectivity is not conducive and integrate it with the state’s healthcare provide chain.