The government has released a map of Indian airspace for drone operations. The map is available on DGCA’s digital sky platform.
The Drone Airspace map has come in the backdrop of the release of the liberalised Drone Rules, 2021, which were announced by the government on August 25, 2021. In addition, the government had also announced the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for drones on September 15, 2021 and issued the Geospatial Data Guidelines on February 15, 2021. All of these policy reforms will lead to super-normal growth in the drone sector.
As per industry estimates, India could become a global drone hub by 2030, owing to its traditional strengths in innovation, information technology, frugal engineering, and huge domestic demand.
With the coming in of the new drone regulations, the drone PLI scheme, and the free availability of drone airspace maps, the drones and drone components manufacturing industry may see an investment of over Rs 50 billion over the next three years. Further, the annual sales turnover of the drone manufacturing industry may grow from Rs 600 million in 2020-21 to over Rs 9 billion in 2023-24. Moreover, the drone manufacturing industry is expected to generate over 10,000 direct jobs over the next three years.
Drone services (operations, mapping, surveillance, agri-spraying, logistics, data analytics, software development, etc.) will expand even further. Over the next three years, it is expected to grow to over Rs 300 billion.
