In Etah and Rupnagar districts, in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, respectively, for the next several weeks, the ANRA’s team will conduct BVLOS food and medical package delivery trials with the help of drone technology
With trials to begin for both food and medical packages, Swiggy may soon deliver food using drone technology. Final clearances from Ministry of Defence (MoD), Directorate General of Aviation (DGCA), and Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) have been given to ANRA Technologies – Swiggy’s drone delivery partner, for commencing drone trials for delivering food. ANRA Technologies has got the clearances for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations. ANRA launched its first sortie on 16 June after a lot of planning, air traffic control integration, and readying equipment. In Etah and Rupnagar districts, in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, respectively, for the next several weeks, the ANRA’s team will conduct BVLOS food and medical package delivery trials with the help of drone technology.
The integrated airspace management firm – ANRA Technologies, apart from partnering with Swiggy for food delivery, is also engaged in another similar project, for which, it has partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, and will focus on medical deliveries.
Shilpa Gnaneshwar, principal program manager of Swiggy, said that through this project the company aims to “put the long-range proficiencies of drone technology to best use”. Gnaneshwar added, “To smoothen and fasten the last mile journey, it only becomes natural for us to explore the latest avenues available to maximise the benefit to our consumers”.
Amit Ganjoo, the founder and CEO of ANRA said that the motivating factor for him and his team comes from knowing the fact that “our technology may soon help deliver food and medical packages to underserved populations”.
ANRA’s team, in a test flight video, showed how the deliveries are likely to happen with the help of drone technology. A drone is seen in the almost three-minute video picking a small food package, flying out to a certain distance before returning to the ground and delivering the package.
A few weeks ago, Dunzo, the Google-backed delivery start-up, had announced that under the ‘Medicine from the Sky’ project launched by the Telangana government in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, it was set to pilot delivery of medicines through drone technology. Including COVID-19 vaccines and other essentials, the project is aimed to enable emergency medical deliveries.
Dunzo is amongst the entities that were recently allowed by the central government to BVLOS experimental flights using drones.
Also read:DigiYatra: A paperless journey experience for domestic air traveller
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