Vaccine delivery through drones in Telangana from June last week

Hyderabad: The 'Medicine from the Sky', an initiative of Telangana government for delivering vaccines using the identified airspace of Vikarabad district is likely to start in the last week of June.

A virtual HIRM (Hazard Identification and Risk Mitigation) workshop was held on Friday with all the concerned stakeholders from key organisations, including Ministry of Civil Aviation, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Airports Authority of India, BCAS and NITI Aayog. The meeting was also attended by the Vikarabad District Collector.

The successful completion of the workshop was a major milestone in the 'Medicine from the Sky' project as it ensures all concerns suitably addressed and the operations to be started soon. The proceedings of this HIRM workshop to be included as part of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of all the drone technology partners for approval from the DGCA.

The first phase of flights with select consortia was tentatively expected to begin in the last week of this month, the officials concerned said. The workshop explored potential hazards and mitigation strategies during the upcoming trials by discussing the CONOPS (Concept of Operations) and SORA (Specific Operations Risk Assessment) of the flights in the Vikarabad airspace.

The CONOPS included detailed description of operations, various system checks, communication protocols, daily flight planning, roles and responsibilities of both crew and officials, etc. to ensure smooth conduct of the trials.

IT Principal Secretary Jayesh Ranjan, said that the objective of 'Medicine from the Sky' was to generate insights that could drive future adoption strategies and policy interventions for inclusion of drones in the healthcare supply chain.

The eventual goal was to integrate drone deliveries with existing systems and enable urban grade infrastructure even for remote and rural areas.