Ministry of civil aviation notified Liberalized Drone Rules 2021

Union ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) notified the liberalized Drone Rules, 2021, on August 26, 2021.

About Liberalized Drone Rules, 2021

• These liberalized rules will replace the unmanned aircraft system (UAS) Rules 2021, which was released on March 12, 2021.
• As per the rules, following approvals have been abolished:

1. Approval for unique authorization number,
2. Approval for unique prototype identification number,
3. Approval for certificate of manufacturing and airworthiness,
4. Approval for certificate of conformance, certificate of maintenance as well as import clearance,
5. Approval for acceptance of existing drones, operator permit, and authorization of R&D organization
6. Approval for student remote pilot licence and remote pilot instructor authorization
7. Approval for drone port authorization, etc.

• New rules also reduced the number of forms, from 25 to 5 and types of fees also reduced from 72 to 4. Fee for a remote pilot licence has been reduced from rupees 3,000 to ₹100 for all categories of drones. It will e valid for 10 years.
• It also comprises of safety features like real-time tracking beacon, and geo-fencing.
• A Digital sky platform will be developed as a user-friendly single-window system. There will be minimal interference by human, because most permissions will be self-generated.

Digital sky platform

It is an initiative by MoCA, that seeks to provide a secure and a scalable platform in order to support the drone technology frameworks like ‘No permission, no take-off’. It has been designed to enable flight permission digitally and manage unmanned aircraft operations & traffic in an efficient manner.

Month: Current Affairs - August, 2021