Arunachal Govt to adopt drone technology for afforestation and healthcare services

Itanagar, Jan 22: The Government of Arunachal Pradesh is looking to take a lead role in promoting drone technology in the North East region of the country and shall soon be conducting pilot projects for healthcare and afforestation using drones, official sources said on Friday.

Besides, the government is also looking to launch a drone training academy in the state capital that will focus on skill development to help the local youth leverage the newly created opportunities in the drone sector.

In this regard, State Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar reviewed the potential of drones for last-mile delivery and roadmap to integrate these into the State's plans including healthcare supply chain and other applications.

Since the difficult terrains of the state make it very difficult to transport critical medicines to the primary and secondary health centres located over large distances, drones shall play a critical role in delivering these medicines in less than half the time, thereby playing a huge role in saving lives.

The hilly state is also looking to use drone based seed-bombing for afforestation in alignment with its vision of increasing its green cover. An area shall soon be earmarked for conducting the seed bombing pilot project.

Furthermore, in order to help the local youth leverage the newly created opportunities in the drone sector, the government is also looking to kick-start a drone training academy in Itanagar that will focus on the training and skill development.

The move shall enable the youth with competent technical skills with a taste of emerging drone technologies, further creating new employment opportunities in the niche sector of drones.

This development comes in after the liberalised Drone Rules 2021 and the Production Linked Incentive Scheme for drones, both of which have been recently notified by the Central Government with a vision to make India a global drone hub by 2030.

Today's meeting was attended by the Principal Secretary (Health), Principal Secretary (Environment and Forests), Secretary (Science and Technology) and the Principal of Rajiv Gandhi Govt Polytechnic, Itanagar, among others. Presentations were given by three firms with expertise in the application of drones, the sources added.