June 13 2021: The Indian government has formally launched an initiative for the delivery of Covid vaccines and mediciines via drone at locations all across India.
Two days ago, HLL Infra Tech Services Limited, a government owned medical infrastructure company, put out a notification on its website, Expression of Interest (EOI) from experienced Indian agencies for the “Delivery of Medical supplies (Vaccines/ Drugs) by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) at various locations in India.”
This builds on the successful trials conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research ( ICMR) and IIT Kanpur to deliver vaccines by UAVs. Based on the preliminary results of the study, ICMR developed a standard protocol for successful delivery of vaccines using a UAV. Now, based on the experience gained in the feasibility study, government seeks to roll out drone based vaccine deliveries where ever it makes sense to do so – presumably in areas otherwise difficult to reach.
HLL Infratech’s EOI document in PDF here Tender document here
A tender has also been floated to find qualified partners and ICMR will engage such UAV operators to operate Beyond Visual Line of Site (BVLOS) in fixed pre-defined and pre-approved flight paths to deliver a payload of Medical Supplies ( including vaccines and other drugs ) at selected locations in India and to return to the command station.
The key requirements spelt out in the tender document:
The only government agency that is already on this path is Telangana state which commenced BVLOS vaccine delivery trials last month with multiple consortia. Now it seems the centre intends to scale this up to an all-India canvas
Our previous stories on Indian Covid-related drone trials here and here