'We Are Going To Go From Autorickshaws To Airrickshaws'

Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, who is spearheading the drone revolution in the country, spoke about issues ranging from creating game-changing regulations to launch of flying taxis in an interaction with Business Today’s Manu Kaushik and Rajeev Dubey.

- Manu Kaushik & Rajeev Dubey

What is our level of preparedness in infrastructure, and where do we stand in terms of the drone ecosystem?

India is on the path to having the world’s leading drone ecosystem. I came to the aviation ministry about two and-a-half years ago. That time, there had been a number of discussions but there was no formal drone policy. It was not that people were not using drones. Even then, if you went to a wedding, you would see people using drones for photography. People were making ads using drones. There was surveillance, too. It was clear that this was going to be a huge industry because of the range of possible applications. We had a series of meetings with security agencies, home ministry, Air Force, other stakeholders, and on the basis of that, as well as a number of discussions with regulators around the world, formulated the draft civil aviation regulations. We called them Drone 1.0. Even as we put out those in the public domain, we recognised that they were restrictive. Nonetheless, it was important to take the first step.