NEW DELHI: Aiming to promote the drone sector, the civil aviation ministry scrapped the requirement of drone pilot licence for operating drones in the country. The move came a day after India announced its decision to ban the import of drones.
Aviation ministry officials said that the Remote Pilot Certificate (RPC) issued by a DGCA-approved drone school through the single window DigitalSky Platform shall be sufficient for operating a drone in India. Moreover, no remote pilot certificate shall be required for operating a drone weighing upto 2 kg for non-commercial purposes.
A notification amending Drone Rules has been issued by the ministry and the requirement of a drone pilot licence has been abolished with effect from February 11.Recently, the Central government banned import of drones with certain exceptions as part of efforts to promote domestic manufacturing of drones in the country. With a view to promote the Drone Industry in the Country, the ministry came out with liberalised drone rules in August 2021.
After the rules, the ministry issued the drone airspace map and production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme in September 2021, and the unmanned airfraft system traffic managment (UTM) policy framework in October 2021. Besides, a drone certification scheme and single window DigitalSky Platform were put in place last month.