Question: Which state government has announced to pilot Medicine from the sky project for delivery of medicines by drones?
(a) Telangana
(b) Andhra Pradesh
(c) Karnataka
(d) Kerala
Answer: (a)
Related facts:
- The Telangana government has selected 16 primary healthcare centres (PHCs) spread around Vikarabad area hospital for pilot testing the ambitious ‘Medicine from the sky’, the first-of-its-kind project involving delivery of medicines through multiple drones.
- The area hospital has been selected as the central point owing to the presence of cold chain facilities and the selected PHCs are both within the Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) and Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) range.
About the project:
- A consortium of seven operators headed by Blue Dart Med-Express had been selected for the project to be launched in the VLOS range of 500 metres initially and will be scaled up gradually to a 9 km range.
- The project would be launched in three waves starting with a pilot followed by mapping the route network for the operation of drones for delivering vaccine/medicine in the desired community health centres and PHCs.
- The project is being launched following the approval granted by the Civil Aviation Ministry to the request made by the State to grant conditional exemption from the Unmanned Aircraft System Rules 2021 for conducting experimental BVLOS drone flights for delivery of vaccines.