Flipkart to conduct pilot to deliver vaccines by drone in Telangana

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Walmart-owned Flipkart said it has partnered with the Government of Telangana to lead a consortium that will develop and execute drone deliveries of medical supplies to remote areas.

As part of the ‘Medicines from the Sky’ project, it will use learnings from its supply chain to deploy drones and enable deliveries of medical supplies. It will also use technologies such as geo mapping, routing of shipments and track and trace of location that it has developed over the years for its e-commerce business.

A combination of these technologies will then be used to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) deliveries in remote areas of the state where the road infrastructure is not conducive for fast delivery of vaccines.

The pilot, which is expected to be conducted for over six days, will be tested out for delivering thousands of vaccines while keeping in mind all the safety and efficiency parameters.

"This pilot will set the premise for the utilisation of drone systems in providing healthcare and product delivery in remote areas and even during disasters" Flipkart's Pranav Saxena said.

Google-backed Dunzo also announced recently that it has partnered with the Telangana Government to pilot drone delivery of medicines with the Telangana Government.

The ‘Medicines from the Sky’ is a project conceived by the World Economic Forum and Healthnet Global Limited that outlines the requirements for drone delivery and how to assess proposals.

The Telangana government has adopted this framework to implement drones for last mile delivery and will integrate them into the state’s healthcare supply chain.