EXCLUSIVE: Real win for drones is rural India, says WEF India's Vignesh Santhanam

The new liberalised drone rules announced by the government in 2021 will play a key role in solving the real-life problems of rural India. Vignesh Santhanam, Lead, Aerospace and Drones, Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum, India, told Business Today that the real win for drones, as a technology, is rural India.

“There are many compelling urban applications of drones. But the real win is if you can solve for the rural parts of India because that is where we find that the gaps in our systems are more. For example, if you look at our healthcare system, on average, one has to walk several kilometres for access to basic health care in a rural setting. But when you come to the cities, you have access to healthcare right there,” he said.

Another area Santhanam highlights is agriculture where farmers can directly benefit from drones. Drones can fly over a small land pasture to understand where pests could potentially affect crops. These are the things that can be easily identified using drones and that data processed can be accessed in a matter of days, instead of weeks. Similarly, there are drought-prone areas where drones can be put to use.

“These are very direct decisions that can happen at the grassroots now (with the help of drones),” he explained. He also added that the government of India's SVAMITVA (or Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas) scheme for rural land mapping, once completed, will probably be the greatest drone survey ever conducted in the world.

Under the new Drone rules, the government had not just abolished several approvals such as unique authorisation number, unique prototype identification number, etc., but also reduced the number of forms from 25 to five. The government also created the DigitalSky platform as a single-window system for most permissions to be self-generated.  

Speaking on the development of the DigitalSky platform, Santhanam added, “The entire stack has several layers on it. You need to know who is flying and where they're flying. You need to also understand that there are drone makes and models. Just like your cars have to be street legal, you go through a process with the RTO. But that process has been on for decades. For drones, the process is still very early. There are teething problems but on the whole, it's on the right track.”

The government of India is actively supporting the drone industry. First, it announced the production-linked incentive (PLI) to promote drone manufacturing in the country. And recently, it organised the Drone Festival of India in Delhi which witnessed participation from the leaders as well as the startups in this space.

“The way our economy opened up in 1992, it is pretty much the same moment for the drone industry. It is not enough to just deregulate or open up the regulations, but you must also have these awareness programs happening in parallel, which is what the government has been doing,” added Santhanam.