Dunzo takes a stab at drone delivery of vaccines in Telengana

The Government of Telangana will work with Dunzo Digital during a six-day trial of medicine delivery through drones between 20 and 25 September.   

The trial is a part of 'Medicines from the Sky' project and will see hyperlocal delivery service Dunzo partner with New Delhi based drone delivery solutions provider Skye Air to optimize healthcare logistics.   

Under the project, the central government in May this year had given permission to the Telangana government to conduct drone-based deliveries of vaccinations.   

“This technology will allow for almost access to vaccines and medicines from the most populous to most remote areas in India in the near future,” Kabeer Biswas, CEO and Founder, Dunzo, said. 

The trials will be held in Vikarabad, Telangana, during which multiple healthcare related use cases are to be undertaken.   

“The drones will deliver up to 12 km within an expected time frame of 18 minutes with each drone carrying vaccines in a temperature-controlled box powered by Bagmo,” said Swapnik Jakkampundi, Co-founder, Skye Air.   

Cochin based Bagmo, founded in 2017, is a provider of  IoT based healthcare information systems.

Sky Air also announced that they will conduct close to 50 drone flights to deliver vaccinations in the near future.   

Skye Air and Dunzo aren’t the only companies carrying out trial runs for medicine delivery. In late August, Bengaluru-based B2B platform Udaan, along with drone manufacturers Throttle Aerospace Systems (TAS), completed the trial run of drone delivery of medicines.  

The trial run was conducted under the supervision of the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) at a 15 km radius in Gauribidanur, a town in the outskirts of Bengaluru.  

On 15 September, the government announced a production-linked-incentive (PLI) scheme for manufacturing drones and drone components in the country. The original PLI scheme has been tenured for three years starting with FY 2021-22. The scheme will be redrafted or extended based on the impact.

The total amount allotted for the PLI scheme is Rs 120 crore spread over the period of three years.