Industry body wants government to establish inter-ministerial committee on drones

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has urged the Centre to establish an inter-ministerial committee, or IMC, on drones to address bottlenecks impeding the sector.

In a report submitted to the government recently, FICCI said the panel should have representation from all concerned ministries and government departments, and should meet regularly.

“The IMC should look into all the issues including innovation, technology development, regulations, mother technology development, global value chains, testing, skill development, training, global standards, reciprocity issues, custom duties to make this sector globally competitive and to become the manufacturing hub for the world,” said the report, a copy of which was reviewed by Moneycontrol.

Issues include getting permission for conducting drone flights, exports and overseas demonstrations of drones, indigenisation of components and so on.

And although the Ministry of Civil Aviation is the nodal ministry for all developments related to drones, its various applications necessitate the intervention/permission of other ministries such as the Ministry of Home Affairs.

FICCI also urged the government to simplify the procurement process for drones.

“Considering that drones are an emerging technology and all companies working on the same are startups, procurements process should not have a heavy pre-qualifying criterion (most drone companies do not have significant revenue at this stage) — the process should be QCBS based i.e.Quality cum Cost-Based Selection,” the report added.

Moneycontrol was the first to report how the Ministry of Civil Aviation, in partnership with the policy think tank Niti Aayog, was working on formulation of drone procurement norms.

The industry requested the government to provide a safe space for drone manufacturers and researchers to test their technologies.

The issue of exports also found a mention in FICCI’s report, with the addition of issues surrounding permission required for taking drones abroad for demonstrations in other countries.

“Taking drones abroad for international exhibitions / demonstrations is a very cumbersome and lengthy process, hampering international marketing activities for Indian manufacturers,” it said.

FICCI suggested that the government allow manufacturers to export their products for demonstration purposes via a self–declaration.

Recently, the government floated draft amendments to the norms regulating export of drones with the aim of simplifying the process.