Unauthorised Drone Delivery Draws Police Action After TikTok Viral Video

In the battle against coronavirus, drones have become an important ally of the government. From disinfecting public areas to monitoring the situation, drones are helping the government to curb the spread of coronavirus in India. In many places, these drones are used to even deliver medicines and other essential items.

However, people in some places are also relying on drone technology to get the deliveries of products like cigarettes and alcohol from bootleggers and the grey market. But it seems that the police is not taking such deliveries lightly, even though there are no humans involved.

In one such case, two people started to deliver pan masala in Gujarat’s Morbi area. The video shared by the duo, on March 12, went viral on social media platform TikTok within hours. While the innocuous duo might have taken the drone route to deliver pan masala, the video shared over TikTok has now landed them in trouble. Chasing the video, local law authorities have arrested them for using drones without the appropriate permissions.

According to a TOI report, the police has also initiated a probe against the two individuals under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897. During the probe, the police had found out that the duo was running an illegal pan masala drone delivery service in Morbi. The police have also confiscated their drone which is said to worth INR 25K.

Drones Take On Covid-19

In the current times of crisis, drones have come up as an effective and simple alternative to limit human contact for crowd dispersals, sanitisation, deliveries of payloads and goods.

Also, the government is scanning areas and neighbourhoods with thermal imaging cameras mounted on top of the drones. For the same, the government is taking help from Indian startups.

For instance, Indian Robotics Solutions is deploying its Corona Combat Drone (CCD) for carrying out disinfection drives in several areas in Delhi in collaboration with the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), including Lal Bagh, Shakurpur Basti, Karol Bagh, Sadar Bazaar and Paharganj. The drone also conducted a disinfection drive in Narela Quarantine Camp.

Meanwhile, Garuda Aerospace is using its 300 drones and 500 pilots to carry out pro-bono disinfection drives to disinfect hospitals, public spaces, hotels, corporates and societies in Tamil Nadu, UP and Chhattisgarh.

Also, Pune and Silicon Valley-based FlytBase is offering drone services free to government officials until May 2020 while Marut Drones is also helping the Telangana government to deliver medicines and collecting blood samples. It is also been implemented to spray sanitizer in the city. The government is also using drones to surveil, especially to prevent gatherings of devotees at religious congregations.

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