Dunzo Digital & Skye Air To Begin Vaccine Delivery By Drones In Telangana

In April this year, the Telangana government received the permission to use drones within the visual line of sight (VLOS) for experimental delivery of covid vaccines from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) for one year. The state government, in partnership with the World Economic Forum, tied up with hyperlocal delivery app Dunzo to pilot drone-based deliveries of medicines in the state. 

Now, Skye Air, which is a part of the Dunzo MedAir consortium for the Government of Telangana’s ‘Medicines from the Sky’ project, will work in collaboration with Dunzo Digital to enable faster and efficient healthcare logistics during the six-day trial.

The trials are slated to begin on September 20, 2021 in Vikarabad, Telangana and are expected to continue till September 25, 2021. During the trials, various healthcare logistics related use cases are expected to be demonstrated by the duo. Skye Air, which focuses on an end-to-end ecosystem for drone based logistics, would conduct the trial as a part of Dunzo Med Air consortium led by the hyper local giant, Dunzo Digital. 

Swapnik Jakkampundi, cofounder, Skye Air, said, “We have had a successful Telangana trial run so far. Dunzo Med Air Consortium will have multiple test use cases including extended and reverse logistics in Vikarabad. These will be BVLOS trials in which drones will deliver within 12-km range in an expected time frame of 18 minutes.” He also mentioned that each drone will be carrying vaccines in temperature-controlled boxes powered by Bagmo. 

Launched in 2015 by Kabeer Biswas, Dunzo Digital is a hyper-local on-demand delivery service startup backed by Google. The startup claims to offer speed delivery services in Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurugram, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

“We believe our participation in the ‘Medicine from the Sky’ project will facilitate a more connected state and country. This technology will allow for almost instantaneous access to vaccines and medicines from the most populous to most remote areas in India in the near future,” Biswas mentioned.

Skye Air also hinted that they will be conducting around 50 flights all delivering vaccines. Besides the government of Telangana, after MoCA liberalised the Drone Rules, 2021 permitting wider use of drones maintaining the safety and security aspect, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was also granted conditional exemption from the Drone Rules.

ICMR will also be using drones for up to 3,000 metres in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Manipur and Nagaland to conduct experimental Beyond the Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) vaccine delivery.