The Need to Regulate Drones in India

In India, there are currently more than five lakh remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) or Drones in the civil domain operating in the Indian airspace. However, most of these Drones operating as of now, are “illegal.” Operations of civil Drones in any form, have been banned in India since 2014. Yet, there are Drones being widely used at weddings, big-ticket corporate or cultural events and even at funerals of politicians. The Drones that we see around us are either imported or smuggled, mainly from China.

There has been a spurt in Chinese Drones in the Indian market after the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued a circular in October 2014, completely banning use of civil Drones. This effectively rendered all Drone usage in the civil domain as illegal, leading to a rise in smuggling of these platforms into India. Since then, Drones have become a lucrative business for grey market operators.

National Drone Policy

However, with effect from December 1, 2018, the current status of Drones is set to change with the DGCA formalising a National Drone Policy, which quashes the long-drawn confusion and ambiguity over Drone operations in India. The new Drone Policy comes in the wake of the realisation that these seemingly harmless toys, which are commonly used for photography or as a sophisticated plaything, can become a serious threat to national security. These gadgets have the potential to be used for spying and could leak sensitive information and data to the adversaries in the neighbourhood, thus jeopardising national security.

The new Drone Policy assumes more criticality in the backdrop of the recent news of China entering into a deal with Pakistan to supply 48 high-end military Drones to it. This is not the only Drone-related threat for India from China. Recent media reports mention how China used a Super Hardware, in the form of a tiny chip, to infiltrate some of the companies in the United States (US). This attack reached close to 30 US companies, including the bigwigs of Silicon city such as Apple and Amazon, by compromising America’s technology supply chain.

The magnitude of this national security threat that Drones may pose, can best be understood when concerns on use of DJI Drones by the armed forces of the US, Australia and several other countries across the world along with the currently raging controversy of the Chinese Super Hardware found in US Telecom systems, are factored in to arrive at the larger picture. Thus, the risk India may be exposed to with those illegal Drones plying all over the Indian skies, is manifold and it is about time that appropriate measures are adopted to curb the risk factors.

The new Drone Policy thus, could not have, come at a more opportune time. The DGCA came up with the policy after extensive consultations among various stakeholders. These new set of rules add registration and licensing regimes to the entire process.

Parallel Drone Economy

Understanding the economic impact of the existing ‘Parallel Drone Economy’ of the past four years is crucial for the successful implementation of the fledgling regulatory framework. If one has to assume that each current owner of the these five lakh “illegal” Drones invested minimum Rs one lakh per Drone, then an estimated 5000 crore of Indian money has already been invested into these Drones through black market cash transactions, based on which the current loss to the exchequer by way of taxes is around 900-1000 crore. On-boarding the existing Drones in the Indian Ecosystem could provide an opportunity for the Government to levy a Registration Tax on these Drones, much like the Life Time Tax charged by RTOs at the time of vehicle registration and recover this loss.

These current owners of Drones have been delivering Drone services to various clients, including Government organisations, over the past four years and earning from it. The existence of these Drones is itself a standing testimony to the failure at the implementation of DGCA’s 2014 notification banning use of civilian Drones. The hyper-local and diffused nature of Drones is very similar to monitoring motorbikes or scooters rather than airplanes, a fact that is at the heart of the failure of Implementation of DGCA’s 2014 notification.

The new Drone Policy comes in the wake of the realisation that these seemingly harmless toys can become a serious threat to national security.

One can thus assume from the past experience that these existing Drone operators would continue to operate irrespective of the regulatory framework. Hence, unless each owner is provided with an option to voluntarily on-board their existing Drone into the regulatory framework by way of a retrofitted device, they would continue with business as usual. None would be willing to invest Rs one lakh further for a new regulatory compliant Drone when having a perfectly operating one at hand, more so because they have been a witness to the failure of implementation of the earlier DGCA policy that allowed them to operate fairly unhindered till date.

Exploiting Drone Technology

The recent Airport Authority of India tender for creation of the DIGITAL SKY Platform does not mention any retrofit system for on-boarding of the existing Drones in the Indian ecosystem. This missing link has the potential to render the BOOT Model of DIGITAL SKY unviable for the operators, given that the volume of new Drones coming into the system would be affected by the huge volume of illegal Drones operating outside the system, much like the parallel economy of the pre-demonetisation days.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) has addressed this need for a retrofit solution to be available in parallel with OEM fitment for tracking of over two crore existing commercial vehicles in India by creating a secure hardware level fully Indian retrofit solution in the form ARAI’s AIS 140 specification, including a testing and type approval system for these to ensure quality and system compliance. This system is being adopted by individual State Governments.

Drones operate like vehicles, much like automobiles, hence rules and systems applicable to automobiles can be adapted and applied to them

This system being established by MORTH to handle a far higher volume of commercial vehicular traffic across India could easily be adapted to offer the existing Drone operators in the Indian Ecosystem a retrofit solution for their existing Drones. This would enable them to ply their trade legally, a major incentive to come on board. This would further ensure that national security would always be at the top in the mind of the stakeholders in the Civilian Drone Ecosystem.

Drones operate like vehicles, much like automobiles, hence rules and systems applicable to automobiles can be adapted and applied to them. With these regulations in place, Drone technology can be adapted across sectors to explore a whole gamut of opportunities. At a time when Drones are being used globally in a variety of applications, including agriculture and mining, this new regulation by DGCA and notification by MORTH, is expected to give a new lease of life to Drone technology in India and open doors to an array of services involving high-end technology.

The author is the founder and CEO of Shree Sai Aerotech Innovations Pvt Ltd and Zuppa, the only Made in India Drone.