New Delhi:   Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, launched ICMR’s Drone Response and Outreach in North East (i-Drone) on Monday. This is a delivery model to make sure that life-saving vaccines reach everyone.

The Union Health Minister said, “Under his [PM Narendra Modi] leadership, the Nation is progressing at a great pace. Today is a historic day, which showed us how technology is making life easier and bringing social change.”

Congratulating the people of the country on this innovative step, Mansukh Mandaviya said, “This is for the first time that a "Make in India' drone has been used in South Asia to transport COVID vaccine over an aerial distance of 15 km in 12-15 mins from the Bishnupur district hospital to Loktak lake, Karang island in Manipur for administration at the PHC. The actual road distance between these locations is 26 k.m. Today, 10 beneficiaries will receive the first dose and 8 will receive the second dose at the PHC.”

This i-Drone has been designed to overcome these challenges by deploying Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAV) / drones to remote areas and hard to reach terrains. Currently, the drone-based delivery project has been granted permission for implementation in Manipur and Nagaland, as well as the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Island.

ICMR conducted an initial study in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur to test the capacity of drones to carry and transfer vaccines safely. The study was conducted in Manipur, Nagaland and Andaman and Nicobar. These studies provided promising results on the basis of which the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and other regulatory authorities have granted permission to fly drones beyond the Visual Line Of Sight.